


[ BURNING INTO LEGEND ]

by KilltheDJ



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Better Living Industries, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Original Character(s), Slow Burn, The Fabulous Killjoys (Danger Days) Are Not MCR, The Underground, don't be fooled this isn't closely following relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 74,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26827459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ
Summary: After a firefight gone Costa Rica, the super-powered desert revolutionists known as THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS are brought down to a safe-haven that goes against everything they stand for; with the opposing ideals but the like-minded goal, it's difficult, but not impossible to get by.At least, that's the plan.With Party Poison in a coma, causing more trouble than he would awake, and the Underground's resident medic unaccounted for, the Underground is at a standstill... Until there's an attack on the Infirmary, with the Killjoys at the center, and more rogue variables than even the best future-seer could predict.
Relationships: Agent Cherri Cola/Jet Star (Danger Days), Fun Ghoul/Party Poison (Danger Days), Kobra Kid/Mr. Sandman (Fall Out Boy)
Comments: 129
Kudos: 46





	1. they say you've been pleading (someone save us)

**Author's Note:**

> SO ! here is the elusive "untitled secret wip" i've been not-so-secret about, and with around 45k written, I thought it was high-time to start posting....

When hell on earth became the new normal, Fun Ghoul was sitting in the back of a beat-up old Trans Am with his knuckles wrapped in bandages and a red-headed spitfire passed out in his lap from exhaustion and malnourishment. 

_Become a Killjoy,_ they said, _it’ll be fun and if you’re lucky, you won’t die young!_

It was not fun, and he was going to die young. It wasn't like that was unusual, but it was starting to grate on his nerves, the ever-constant fighting, the consistent plays on their life, everything. 

Being a Killjoy wasn’t worth it. 

At least, that’s what he thought at times like this, when he had to keep making sure Jet was awake so they didn’t crash and burn in a fucking ditch, and he didn’t know if it was bitterness or realism keeping the statement at the forefront of his mind. 

“Where are we goin’, Star?” Ghoul could hear the exhaustion in his own voice, but it didn’t matter much. He and Jet were the only ones awake, considering Poison was passed out in Ghoul’s lap, and Kobra was curled up in on himself nursing a ray gun wound that had clipped his side. 

Fuck, they were so, so fucked. 

“Jus’... somewhere. You’ll fight with me, and I’m not in the mood.” 

If Ghoul had been in a better mood, more playful, he would make some statement about _kidnapping_ or _joynapping,_ but as it was, he was exhausted and all he could do was nod. It didn’t matter what was happening, he supposed. 

They were all going to die if they didn’t get medical treatment. Or, well, three of them were, and Jet would probably follow suit because living wasn’t cracking up to be what it was meant to. 

The desert sky of Zone Three glittered red with clouds and somewhat visible stars, and through the dust and scratches on the windows, Ghoul could pretend he was watching the sunset and somewhat enjoying the fucked-up life he lived. 

_Lived._ It was a funny word, wasn’t it? But he wasn’t going to get into the ridiculousness of dying; the art of living was worth so much more, and if he tried, if he _tried tried tried,_ they were all sitting on the roof of the Diner watching the stars come out with some stale granola bars and blankets between them. And it would all be okay. 

Would it? 

That was Ghoul’s thought as he let his head rest against the window, running a hand through Poison’s hair to help make his dreams better, and fell asleep despite the jolting of the rocks underneath the Trans Am. 

_ 

When Ghoul woke up, he was more concerned than anything. 

He was half-slumped over the backseat of the ‘Am, a seatbelt slicing into his arm, and no one around. 

That wouldn’t be so confusing if it wasn’t _dark_ out. Ghoul knew desert dark, and it wasn’t desert dark. It was the kind of dark you got when you turned off a light in the basement and couldn’t run up the stairs quick enough. 

So, it was safe to say he didn’t know what he was doing. The seatbelt was a bitch to unbuckle; Ghoul rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with a sigh, pushing the door of the backseat open.

If they had been kidnapped, he was going to throw hands, because he did not have the time for that. In fact, he had so _little_ time to get kidnapped, that he wasn’t going to bother being angry. 

Maybe they would feed him. _That_ would be the best case scenario, and Ghoul’s stomach rumbled in agreement. Fuck, he did not like Power Pup. 

When he finished pushing the back door open, he was disappointed. 

Based on the amount of _cars_ and _people_ he saw, he had not been kidnapped, and he found Kobra sitting on the roof of the Trans Am with an apple in his mouth. 

An _apple._

Nevermind the fact that Kobra was very close to making out with that apple, tired eyes closed against the sudden sparkling lights in the not-so-dark distance. “Hey, Kobes?” 

“What?” Kobra’s word was muffled from the apple in his mouth, but he didn’t seem to care, not even bothering to face Ghoul, though he let one of his legs hang over the edge of the car roof, in front of where the backseat door was. 

“Where the fuck are we?” 

It seemed like Kobra was not expecting such a basic question, because all he did was spit the apple out into his hand, with nothing more than a few teeth marks exposing the yellow insides of the fruit, and sighed softly. “I don’t really know. Jet said it was some place that could help us, but Poison threw a hissy fit and a half when he woke up.” 

Because that was such a clear answer. “Er, will it help us, then?” 

Kobra lifted what might have been the barebones skeleton of a shirt, had there not been a slash across the stomach ruining the faded design. Underneath, the skin was pale and bruised, but there were bandages slung around his torso. 

_Clean bandages._

Yeah, maybe he wasn’t so disappointed they weren’t kidnapped. Ghoul grinned, and there was a spark of happiness somewhere in Kobra’s eyes, but it was hard to tell with the cold demeanor the Kid gave. 

Before he could ask where Jet and Poison were, the former approached with bright purple curls bouncing around their shoulders. “Hey, you’re awake!”

“Aw, don’t be so disappointed,” Ghoul said dryly, leaning against the dirty framework of the car. It didn’t seem to have any effect on Jet, nor their eye roll, but Ghoul didn’t mind much. “Poundin’ headache, though, and the Kid’s mackin’ on an apple.” 

“What does that have to do with anything?” If Ghoul thought his tone was dry, and he did, then the Kid’s voice was like the Sahara desert. Or the Zones. 

Ghoul didn’t answer, electing instead to turn his attention back to Jet Star. “You gonna tell us the official name of where the hell we are, Spaceman?” 

“That I am, Ghost Fuck,” Jet said smoothly, boots crunching on the gravel covering... holy shit, is that actual pavement? It _was!_ “The Underground, every Juvee Hall’s wet dream!”

“Doesn’t seem so impressive to me.” 

“Nothin’s impressive to you,” Ghoul muttered, though he took care to make sure Kobra didn’t hear it. Nevertheless, it _wasn’t_ that impressive, the more he actually looked around. 

In fact, it seemed a hell of a lot more like if you were to take a skating rink, like the one out in Zone Two that Poison got kicked out of for breaking someone’s leg, and make it _bigger,_ with more neon and less rotting beams holding the place up. 

Actually, in that regard, it was a lot like the Underground was a fusion of a skating rink and a WalMart. Equally mysterious, equally ridiculous. 

Neither Jet nor Kobra responded, but Jet nodded in the direction of further into skating-WalMart, and Ghoul took that as a gesture to look around with Jet’s careful guidance. 

Yeah, that would’ve been a lot more fucking fun if Ghoul hadn’t nearly _fallen to his death_ five feet into the damn walk, his toes scraping over the edge of a… a metal… a metal fucking platform? “What the—!”

Jet’s hand was wrapped tight around Ghoul’s arm. “And, uh, that’s what happens when you lose your balance. Keep, uh, keep steady, yeah?” 

“You didn’t warn me I was going to die if I didn’t pay attention!”

“You should know that by now.” While Jet’s voice was harsh, their eyes weren't and Ghoul knew they didn’t mean anything malicious by it.

In fact, he knew that Jet would certainly be in tears if Ghoul were to walk off a cliff. It was the Kid and his blatant dislike of Ghoul that had Ghoul rattled. 

Nevertheless, the two of them continued walking without so much as anything spoken between them. It wasn’t that Ghoul didn’t want to talk, it was that he didn’t know what to talk about. 

So, he found something that the both of them could agree on, or more or less care about. Poison. “Where’s the crash queen? You seem to have come back with a lack of, well, sorrow in your expression.” 

“Oh, he’s still kickin’,” Jet grinned, the type of grin you had when your estranged-save-for-the-holidays cousin performed the sickest trick in existence, even if they managed to bang themselves up so much it prompted an ER visit. “Kickin’, but, you know, a little busy being unconscious.” 

“Well, isn’t he lazy?” snorted Ghoul, making the sarcasm in his tone easy to pick up on, because he knew that Jet wasn’t the best at figuring that stuff out. It was probably why they never talked to the Kid. “Unconscious for right now, or indefinitely?” 

That’s when Jet’s face fell. “Yeah, that’s the thing. We don’t know. Or, I don’t know, and I don’t think the nurses know.” 

“And the doctor?” 

“Don’t know about that, actually. There weren’t any doctors the entire time I was there, and I was there until they finally said Poison was stable. No doctors, no set word for either of us.” 

That wasn’t concerning at all, was it? Ghoul frowned, and he knew that the scar on the side of his mouth resented the motion, and he gave absolutely no fucks whatsoever. “Sounds like trouble. You know we attract it like magnets.” 

“That would have been a great pin if you had said electricity instead of magnets, ‘cos, you know—” 

“Poison can light up half a Neu—er, half a town and then some?” Ghoul knew which words he had to tread on; he knew what was safe to bring up and what wasn’t, but that didn't mean he was going to be an ass about it when he slipped up. 

In fact, Jet didn’t even catch it, and if they did, they weren’t showing it. “Yeah! Destroya, it was impressive, wasn’t it?” 

“I think my little light show was pretty cool, too.” 

Jet rolled their eyes, though it was more affectionate than it was exasperated. “It was. But not as cool as lighting up a whole _town!_ Arson is cool, but not that cool.” 

“Says the person who can’t commit arson like I can!”

“No one can commit arson like you can, Ghoulie, dear.” 

That was true, and Ghoul’s expression quirked into a slight smile as he felt a lick of a flame touch his palm, his own creation, burning so hot it was cold. _He_ made that. He made that and, despite his pride, Poison’s bigger-and-better light show _was_ bigger and better. 

By the time he had figured out that he was willing to overcome his own dignity, Jet had led him to… He didn’t know. 

The pavement walkway they had been on, a _catwalk,_ eight-feet-wide with abrupt drops on either side led into _another_ platform. It wasn’t solid ground, and Ghoul didn’t like that. Nerves twisted his stomach into knots, nausea knocking through his head. 

Not solid ground. 

Jet had a hand around his arm, though, a steadying figure, but that would’ve been far more helpful if Jet could fly. Alas, none of them had managed to get that ability. “It’s fine, ‘kay? These have held up for longer than either of us have been alive. _Combined.”_

“Yeah, and we have the shittiest luck on the planet,” Ghoul mumbled, though he tried not to sound so callous. 

Jet was confident it was fine. 

Ghoul was confident that heights should be _illegal_ and sudden drops to his death should be optional and not a requirement. It was different than sitting up on the roller coasters in the old amusement park; when he did that, it was like a game, and it was his choice to risk his life. 

He was the one who got to decide whether he thought the structure was safe enough to climb on, put all his weight on and therefore trust with his life. 

He couldn’t do that on the catwalk. 

Nevertheless, Jet was slowly leading him forward, and Ghoul pretended he could feel the sand under his feet, that it wasn’t the _click click click_ of worn-down boots on a metal surface, that Jet was holding onto him because they were both touch-starved to hell and back. _Not_ because of whatever the hell was going on in Ghoul’s head. 

Ghoul’s head was, for all intents and purposes, a _wreck._ It was rather inconvenient, wasn’t it? 

“You okay in there?” 

Ghoul nodded, shaky, cursing himself to the high heavens for the way his voice shook. “‘M good. Poison better know we love him because if it was for _anyone else -”_

“You wouldn’t be doing this. I know, I know.” 

That comforts Ghoul more than he would like to admit, and there was something about Jet’s voice that told him it wasn't that weird perception charm speak talking. Jet wasn’t trying to get him to believe in something that wasn’t real. 

Jet wouldn’t do that to Ghoul.

Ghoul learned, very quickly, that maybe it was a good thing his hearing wasn’t the best, because he could see more people in one concentrated area than he _ever_ had back in the Zones. 

In the Zones, it was 900 miles of _hope you don’t die on the road, have fun!_ But.. but here… in the Underground… 

It was less like a wasteland and more like if you were to take Battery City and make it not shitty. Tthere was color _everywhere._ Color and people and _noise._ Ghoul hated noise. 

Maybe it was because he grew up in a place like the Desert, where sound was a weapon and the silence of the Desert was a comforting backdrop against the harsh red of blood-stained memories in Polaroids, but the more he heard the more he wanted to tune it all out. 

So much sound was _bad._

Jet let go of Ghoul without a word, sensing Ghoul’s need to turn his hearing aids down and make everything just a little more _safe._ More safe, better than the Underground. 

Every Juvee Hall’s wet dream, huh? Well, Juvee Halls could suck his… 

“You _sure_ you’re good?” 

“Absolutely not. But I wanna see Poison, ‘cos you know his powers always act funky when he’s out of commission.” That part was true, but it certainly wasn’t the only reason he wanted to go visit Poison.

It was the reason he gave his head, though, so it could stop screaming _danger, danger, not solid ground, get the hell out of there._

He _wasn’t_ going to go back to the Trans Am. Besides, Kobra was back there and he didn’t want to spend any more time with Kobra than he physically had to, considering they lived together and all that jazz. 

With a single solemn look, Jet continued leading the way through the maze of catwalks that Ghoul didn’t bother looking at. Everything was shining stainless steel and plain concrete, graffiti in every color of the rainbow and this and that and fuck that, fuck that, Ghoul couldn’t deal with that. 

“Do you think he’s going to act up while he’s, y’know?” 

It’s Jet asking, and Ghoul pretended he didn’t notice the way that Jet almost slipped up and said _comatose_ instead of _asleep,_ or the shaky filler they’d said instead, because maybe they both knew how much it hurt to say that. 

Maybe that was because they’d had this scare before, and they both knew what happened last time. Except that was Kobra’s fault, not Poison’s own. 

Ghoul shrugs, uncomfortable; it showed on his face and in the tense pull to his lips. “Dunno. Hope not, ‘cos it looks like a place like this is full of ‘lectricity.” 

Before they could get much further in their conversation of concerns, they were rudely interrupted by yet another hundred foot drop. 

You know, trying to play off fear with humor was working rather well, in Ghoul’s humble but superior opinion, if only because it made the beating of his heart sound less like panic and more like an over exaggeration. 

He was a Snow Storm through and through. He wasn’t meant to be in this weird metal contraption of hell. Plus, there wasn’t any sunlight, and while Ghoul may complain about the burning of his shoulders after he spent too long working on the ‘Am, it was still a _constant._

Jet pulled him to the side once again, on an uphill and progressively more narrow catwalk. So narrow, in fact, that about twenty feet in, Ghoul and Jet couldn’t walk next to each other without falling, which meant Ghoul had to let go of Jet’s hand, and… 

Call him a baby, but Ghoul didn't like that. Not in the slightest. Nevertheless, he devoted his focus to looking around at the Underground in more detail rather than staring _down_ at what would, in fact, be a long fall and a short death. 

The Underground was white noise, large cliffs, and _people._ Those were the most prominent details, and the rest was muddled in the mix of _everything everything everything._ It was an onslaught to the senses and Ghoul could understand why other people liked it, maybe, but not him. 

Killjoys were fickle creatures; they lived by the moonlight and they shot out through the sand dunes at a hundred miles per hour whenever they had the chance; they vandalized places they shouldn’t and their very existence was a blatant middle finger, as it was supposed to be. 

But Juvee Halls, they laid back. They watched other people do the work. They _hid_ in places like the Underground and wondered what was happening on the surface like it was a pipe dream. 

It _wasn’t._ It was real and people died and it didn’t matter when you lived in the sewers like a rat in a cage. Trapped, but free, if you convinced yourself of that long enough. 

It was a dangerous way to live. 

And so, Ghoul decided he didn’t like the place. He was wondering where Kobra got that apple, though, because for freedom, he sacrificed things like fresh fruit and air conditioning and showering and _laundry._ (It was a net loss no matter what you did, really.) 

“You holdin’ up back there?” Jet asked, far too relaxed for them to do anything other than set Ghoul’s nerves alight. 

He _was_ holding up, and then Jet had to startle him, and holy fucking fuck he was going to fall and die and fuck fuck _fuck—_

“Hey, Ghoulie,” Jet started, soft, frozen on the catwalk as Ghoul shook, his foot slipping off the side just enough to kick a few rocks stuck in his sole down into the void. “Do you want me to… charm you?” 

If Ghoul didn’t know any better, he would assume Jet was trying to flirt him out of the situation. Instead, Ghoul knew what they meant, and nodded silently. An act of courage in itself, if you asked him, shaking like a leaf in an underground hellhole. 

Jet’s voice was soft and pretty and _light;_ it was a drop of water on a hot day and a daisy in a field. “Ghoulie, you’re not scared of heights. They’re your bitch. You know how this works.” 

It was less like Ghoul suddenly _believed_ them and more like Ghoul had no choice other than to let the meaning of the words wash over him; it worked its way through his veins, the magic, Jet’s _voice,_ a pulling sensation that changed his system, that calmed his shaking nerves, that made the pit in the bottom of his stomach go away. 

When he looked down, precariously, leaning his entire body over the edge, he wasn’t afraid. “Thanks, Jet.” 

“You know it. We gotta go on one other catwalk and then we’re good, okay?” 

By then, Jet’s power should wear off, though Ghoul didn’t know how good they were getting with that ability of theirs. Ghoul hummed regardless, practically _bouncing_ down the catwalk, despite the way the metal seemed to shake underneath him. 

It wouldn’t break. 

If the Witch wanted him dead, then she’d have done it at a far more convenient time. 

_ 

Poison wasn’t looking good. That was the easiest way to put it, and Ghoul swallowed at the idea that he would _stay_ that way. 

“Is he… y’know?” 

There was a nurse walking by who caught his question. She had bright red hair, too, but her soft red eyes gave away that it was synthetic. Huh. “Is he dead? No.” 

“I can see that he’s breathing,” said Ghoul, under his breath, the kind of judgemental that comes out when your friend is comatose in a hospital bed in a strange place with no doctors, not even on solid ground. Could you blame him for being uptight? “But how long is he going to be that way?” 

The nurse shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

Gritting his teeth to keep from snapping, Ghoul forced his face to contort into a smile. It appeared more like a grimace. “Well, then, get someone who fucking does.” 

She rolled her eyes, and Ghoul’s finger twitched with the urge to fucking punch her. He did that a lot. “We got no doc till the man in purple comes back. Boy genius knows it all.” 

Oh. Someone _else_ to be angry at. Ghoul was more than okay with that. Still, he had to play nice in order to get information. “Boy genius and man in purple, huh? Who’s that?” 

“Dr. Benzedrine. He runs this place, you know. The Infirmary.” No, Ghoul did not know, and sensing this in his facial expression, the nurse continued on. “He’s the only actual doctor we have, and he’s sort of a big deal in the Underground. Where are you from?” 

Was his desert lilt that heavy, or just his cluelessness? “Zones bitch at heart. But we’re talking about my friend here. You’re telling me your only doctor is MIA and there’s nothing anyone can do in the meantime?” 

“Not unless you find someone with enough qualifications; someone crazy enough to run through all this chaos without missing a beat.” 

Well, Ghoul had to give her that, but he wasn’t going to pretend that he didn’t flip her off as she walked away, barely listening to his next sentence, which he didn’t even remember himself.

Jet must’ve heard the entire thing, because they gave Ghoul a sympathetic look as he sat down in one of the makeshift waiting seats - nothing more than a few neon-painted five-gallon buckets by Poison’s bedside. 

“I hate this place.” Ghoul wasn’t going to be _quiet_ about it.

“And I don’t blame you for that. It doesn’t suit my fancy, either.” Then again, nothing that even vaguely resembled the city had Jet’s fancy, including medbays and places like that. 

Ghoul knew why, and it wasn’t right to use that against them. He wasn’t going to be that kind of friend or that kind of crewmate. So, he didn’t bring it up as he shrugged, stiff and moody and oh-so-very-stereotypically a teenage boy. He didn’t _care._ “I hate this place and I wanna go home.” 

They both knew they couldn’t go home without Poison. Or Kobra, for that matter, but Kobra wasn’t the center of attention he made himself out to be. 

Jet didn’t bother trying to console Ghoul, though, because they both knew it was useless. “I used to come to this place when I was a kid. I know you hate it, but it’s pretty cool if you get past all the…” 

“City stuff?” 

“Yeah. The city stuff. I think you would like the showers. I know you hate being so grubby. Or the laundry! You could finally wash that stupid vest of yours, make it green again. They even have little tea shops.” 

“What the fuck is tea?” 

Jet sighed, heavy. “Snow Storm, most definitely. It’s like… it’s a drink that you can drink in a lot of different ways. Like coffee, but tastes better, and it has caffeine.” 

“Coffee fucking sucks.” 

“I _know._ That’s why I think you would like tea!”

Ghoul wasn’t trying to be a conversationalist, despite Jet’s efforts, and Jet gave up after Ghoul refused to answer; but both of their attention was pulled to the boy on the hospital bed as _blue_ flashed across the infirmary.

_Fuck._

Ghoul jumped up, his vest clinking with the weight of all the pins, rushing to the other side of Poison’s bed because it was no doubt going to be a two-person job; Jet got the gist, holding Poison’s other arm down without anymore than a fleeting eye contact with Ghoul. 

“Where the hell is Kobra when you need him?” Ghoul’s already shouting, he knew he was, and it garnered more looks than he would like but it didn’t _matter_ because Poison was the one garnering looks when another blue shock ripped through the infirmary, straight from the dim yellow lightbulb into Poison’s arm. 

Jet hissed, gritting their teeth and holding Poison’s arm so tightly Poison’s skin was a sickly pale yellow. “Someone’s gotta get him.” 

Poison electrocuted Jet. 

Ghoul was next; Poison clearly had a problem with being held down, but it was the only way to make sure his system didn’t overload the same way it did when he landed himself in the whole coma mess in the first place!

“Someone get Kobra!” Jet shouted, as though no one had heard Ghoul, and on cue - “Fuck!”

It was the only thing Ghoul could yell to keep himself from screaming, and his fingertips burned burned _burned_ where he was holding Poison, and it didn’t _matter,_ because the lights were flickering and the medical equipment was going haywire and everything was wrong wrong _wrong_ wake up Poison wake up wake _up._

“Charm him or something!” Ghoul hissed, his jaw shut tight, trying to hold on, but he knew that he couldn’t, he couldn’t he couldn’t he couldn’t, not without getting hurt and Poison wouldn’t forgive himself if he hurt Ghoul _and_ Jet and and and _he needed to let go._

“I - I can’t!” Ghoul didn’t know whether that was because Jet’s voice was strained and panicked or because they couldn’t charm someone without their permission.

He didn’t care, either. 

Other people were rushing near them, but all the nurses stopped short, blue sparks illuminating their necks from the burning of electricity where most of their wires were covered in thin synthetic skin; they couldn’t go close to Poison. 

No one could. 

Someone needed to get the Kid. But no one knew who the Kid _was_ and holy fucking shit holy fucking shit— 

Ghoul let go. He let go and Poison’s chest started shaking, shaking, up and down up and down like he was having a fucking seizure and he was still asleep and Ghoul’s hands burned and he took off running, running, pushing past the stagnant droids, past the other patients, _out out out out._

The catwalks were the least of Ghoul’s concerns. 

He damn near fell off another fucking ledge, but he caught himself from a quick death and jumped onto the nearest catwalk, all blurring blurring _blurring_ together but what the fuck did he care? 

They would all be dead if Poison overloaded again. 

And, Destroya be damned, Poison had _already_ electrocuted Ghoul enough for a lifetime, thank you very much, and _what_ route did Jet take him on? Pink one, narrow one, wide then narrow one? 

He was supposed to remember that _backwards?_

Fuck, fuck; Ghoul kept swearing to himself, of course he did, of course he _needed_ to because how else was he going to cope with the fact that his comatose best friend just electrocuted him and he had no fucking clue where the _only person able to calm him down was?_

Yeah, maybe he was a little sensitive, if you couldn’t tell. 

“C’mon… C’mon…” Ghoul murmured, over and over, turning this way and that, but unable to move, unable to tear his feet off of the catwalk because the Infirmary was in sight but he had no idea where the ‘Am was and if he found the ‘Am then he would lose the Infirmary and— “Kobra! Kobra fucking Kid!”

It would get drowned out in the white noise. In the sound of the music and the restaurants and the colors and that didn’t even make sense but it made sense to Ghoul and and and Jet was going to _die_ and if Poison killed Jet then Poison would kill _himself_ because he hurt someone and and and—

“Fuck is it, fuckface?” Kobra said dryly, clearing not registering Ghoul’s plight as Ghoul swung around to scowl, panicked and upset because of _course_ Kobra glitched over here, of course Kobra had to act like a dipshit. 

“It’s Poison. His— he’s— his powers!”

Apparently, that’s all Ghoul needed to say to keep Kobra from being a complete douchebag, because the smug and annoyed look fell off his face in an instant. “Where is he? He okay? Hurt anyone?” 

“Just me and Jet. And, you know, he’s where the fucking blue sparks are coming from.” 

Really, it was more like blue _flashes,_ but Kobra didn’t correct Ghoul; instead, he gripped Ghoul’s arm withy a pained look, and Ghoul didn’t have the time to brace himself for the shock of cold that spread through his system like being dipped into hell and back.

He fucking _hated_ Kobra’s glitches. 

But the next time he opened his eyes, he was in the middle of the infirmary, watching Jet desperately try to hold Poison down by themself without covering his chest, because that was the equivalent of choosing a heart attack; Poison’s skin was beginning to turn translucent, his veins standing prominent and electric blue against the sickly lack of color, and _fuck._

Kobra was four steps ahead of Ghoul;, shoving past the wall of stock-still droids and nurses; he knelt down by Poison’s bedside, putting a cold hand over Poison’s heart, over the searing cloth that was acting as somewhat of a nonconductor, keeping Poison from _stopping Kobra’s heart._

What lovely family dynamics, huh? 

Ghoul didn’t know what it was, and probably never would, that kept Poison from electrocuting Kobra. _Only_ Kobra. Regardless, Kobra was cold as the dead and sweating bullets, _cold sweat,_ keeping his hand over Poison’s heart, muttering something, something, maybe a prayer. 

In the end, whatever prayer he was saying didn’t work. 

Instead, the brightest flash of blue yet shot across the infirmary, hitting one of the glass panels overlooking the rest of the Underground, _shattering_ the glass, and and _and..._

Kobra was still sitting there, kneeling, sweating, gritting his teeth with his eyes shut tight like he was having a nightmare. Maybe he was.

There was something interlinking their powers, som _e_ thing, something, there had always been something and there always would be and Ghoul didn’t know what it was but it was keeping them both alive. 

And, slowly, Kobra’s body beganmimicking Poison’s.

While the clock only read a few seconds, it was an eternity without a doubt; Kobra’s body began to take on the same sickly translucence, the same color winding up his veins from where he was in contact with Poison.

There was nothing Ghoul or Jet could do. They could _barely_ get close to Poison, but they were watching, watching, and— no they weren’t.

Whatever Kobra was doing had some sort of reaction, because the blue flashes, taking and surging and giving and taking electricity, brought the entire Underground to a screeching, dark stop; the dim lights outside of the Infirmary keeping the entire place lit shut off completely. 

But Kobra and Poison, Kobra and Poison were visible once their eyes adjusted to the light, and Kobra’s hair was flying from the wind Poison was somehow generating, and, oh, great, just what Ghoul needed a day after a firefight.

Wonder where the hell that _doctor_ was, huh? 

“Kobra, be careful!” It’s Jet, and they both knew it was useless to yell while the Venom Brothers were in their weird state, but it was Jet’s nature and Ghoul didn’t blame them.

He thought he could feel Jet trying to reach their magic, their _ability_ toward the pair, but it got lost in translation. It always did when it came to those two. 

_They were going to hurt people._

They were, it was inevitable, especially since it was all going down in an infirmary with other injured people and Kobra needed to do something _fast_ and Ghoul couldn’t lie, he’d never had much faith in the Kid to begin with. Too many letdowns and too many glares made a rocky foundation for trust. 

All at once, the wind dropped. The blue dropped. 

And with the blue flashes gone, Kobra collapsed, too, lying on the ground next to Poison’s bed, panting heavily and dripping sweat. 

Without Poison’s powers in play, the Underground shot back to usual like a boomerang; the lights came back on and the droids started moving again; no more flickering, no more flashes, no more electricity.

The only sign of Poison’s powers was the mess covering the Infirmary floor and the broken window. Beyond the terrified expressions, everything was back to usual. 

_Back to usual._ Because Poison could overload and accidentally kill them all if it wasn’t for Kobra’s weird sibling powers, and then it would all go _back to normal,_ because it was just another day for goddamn _Fabulous Killjoys._

Living with superpowers was… Well, it was certainly something. And, perhaps, it hadn’t been the best idea to make a crew _solely_ of super-powered individuals. 

But hey, that was in the past, wasn’t it? Too far in to stop. 

The red nurse droid, the one that had been snippy with Ghoul earlier, was looking at him with wide eyes. “You… you guys have superpowers?” 

“He does,” Jet supplied helpfully, weakly pointing at Poison. Maybe it was the magic of Jet’s voice, or how Ghoul’s body radiated far more heat than it was supposed to, but the nurse clearly _knew._

It wasn’t like superpowers were illegal or anything, not in the Lobby and not in the Desert at least, but they were tricky tricky things to deal with. 

Apparently, that layer of confusion and fear hadn’t hit the Underground yet. Oh, Ghoul bitterly wished he was the one who hadn’t met a super before. None of them would know what _humble_ meant if a dictionary was shoved into their faces, and that included himself, he supposed. 

“I— I can see that. How do you… deal with it?” The second sentence was far quieter, as though it was a taboo to not speak of the supernatural abilities making up some of the population. Like it _was_ a crime, but it wasn’t. 

Ghoul’s temperature rose as his temper, momentarily, flared. Still, he gave the nurse a tight smile, the same way he did earlier. “Very easily. Because, as you can see, we’re _human.”_

While Jet slapped him on the arm, it dissuaded Ghoul very little. He saw the way the nurse flinched, and maybe a spark of sympathy burned up his throat, but he bit it back. It wasn’t the time to regret his life choices, and it never would be. “Since we’re human, we know very well how to control our powers. That is, you know, a little difficult when you are _unconscious_ because your own body betrayed you. I’m sure you know the feeling.” 

That was crossing a line. Maybe Ghoul knew that when he said it, but it didn’t change the fact that he _did,_ and maybe he didn’t want to take it back. He wasn’t an android, and he was tired of being treated like a freak and a monster because his powers were destructive. 

He could burn the entire place down. He _could._ But he wasn’t going to, because he wasn’t like that. Because a _monster_ would do that, and Ghoul was a _person,_ despite what the name might suggest.

Some people couldn’t understand that. Some _droids_ couldn’t understand that. But it didn’t make it his problem. 

Nevertheless, the nurse’s eyes narrowed into a thin, hard-line. Anger. Pre-programmed in, huh? How did it feel to be so _inhuman,_ Ghoul wondered, glaring right back with the same amount of malice. “Get out. Visiting hours are over while we clean up the mess _he_ made.” 

“Don’t you need patient info?” 

“Family only,” the nurse smiled, and she saw the spark light behind Ghoul’s eyes. And she walked away.

Ghoul had had his fair share of bad things happen to him before. He’d had his mouth slit open, he’d had his family die, he’d had people walk away from him and people who killed in cold blood. But he’d never, _never_ been told that he wasn’t his crew’s family, regardless of whether he was in their permanent line-up. 

Ghoul’s jaw dropped, and not even Jet dared to touch him. He was radiating heat again, his fingertips flickering a blue light - not the same blue as Poison’s electricity, more like… more like that of the bottom of a fire, when it burns too hot for too long. 

“Let’s… Let’s go.” Bothering with a nickname was pointless, and Jet knew that. They _both_ knew that. Or maybe all three of them did, but Kobra was too busy groaning on the floor and, if Ghoul thought about the old horror books he’d taught himself to read, writhing like a possessed Victorian child to pay attention. 

Ghoul didn’t heed Jet’s silent offer to walk together, storming out of the Infirmary with little intention of going back to the Trans Am. He was going to get himself lost, and in the process, he wanted to buy himself some cigarettes.

If he could find them.

Destroya, who the hell designed this place? Ghoul was going to have words, because he was fucking tired of being so confused and lost and nearly falling to his death because some toddler pushed him out of the way and the white noise was _bad_ and he wanted his family. _He wanted his family._

Because they were family. They were all family and that nurse droid could suck on a toaster in the fucking shower if she wanted to say that they weren’t. They were family; that didn’t mean they had to get along or that they had to understand each other in the same ways and she didn’t know a damn thing about family, did she? 

Of course she didn’t. Droids never did. 

And, fuck, maybe he was being cruel, maybe he was being biased, but Ghoul didn’t care. It wasn't his place to care whether she got her shit together or not, but it _was_ his place to decide who his family was and wasn’t. Didn’t that count for anything? 

Ghoul huffed, and ignored the smoke curling up from his fingers, up into the air before dissipating in the peripherals of his vision. He _needed_ a smoke. Then he would calm down and he wouldn’t burn anything or anyone and fuck, fuck he just wanted to go _home._

But he'd never had a real home and there was nowhere to go back to for boys who burn too bright. 

So, instead, too turned every which way to figure out where he was going, Ghoul sighed, dropping down onto the catwalk; one of his legs was folded over the other, and the other was hanging off the ledge. People were walking around him, mindless chatter and boring conversations all mushing into one unpleasant buzzing in his ears. 

They thought he was family, right? Jet and Poison? 

Kobra was a wildcard, and Ghoul had always told the other two there would be a day when he would turn on them. That day hadn’t happened, yet, but they still fought as often as they could, like bickering siblings. A _wildcard,_ that was Kobra, and Ghoul didn’t care what he thought. Right? “Are you… okay?” 

Speak of the Devil, and the bleach-blond frat boy himself will appear. Stupid fucking glitching. “Do I look okay?” 

“Uh, is that rhetorical, or…?” 

“Yeah, of course it’s rhetorical,” Ghoul snapped, thumbing his nose up at Kobra, turning his gaze to the above catwalks.

They were like _levels;_ each platform was like it’s own little city; they all had their own purposes and causes and destinations and… _oh._ The level idea would probably explain why there were, you know, giant signs illuminating each platform with a number on them. 

Kobra sat down next to him, and Ghoul had too much pride to move away. He didn’t like how close Kobra was, though. “So. About Poison’s… _thing.”_

“Make it sound less like you’re talking about his dick, yeah?” 

“Ew! Gross!” Kobra batted at his shoulder with a look of disgust, lip curled up, but a smile pulling at it nonetheless. ”I am most definitely _not_ talking about any genitalia, gutter rat. I’m talking about his outburst.” 

“You mean the one you just stopped with your bare hands and then came to find me, for some fucking reason? Shouldn’t you be giving that obnoxious nurse his info or something?” 

“She didn’t need any. She was fucking with you. And, I’ll have you know, we’re _walking_ back, it fuckin’ hurts trying to do this so much.” 

Detroya, Kobra was a little whiny, wasn’t he? Then again, Ghoul supposed, he _did_ just prevent a city-wide blackout and a frenchfried Party Poison in a hospital bed. 

None of them except Poison had ever seen Poison _truly_ overloading before other than Kobra. None of them knew the extent of their powers, and maybe that’s what made these encounters fucking terrifying.

Maybe if Kobra went haywire enough, he would, like, travel through time. Destroya, if he did that, then he was required to buy them all ice creams at some pre-Analog Wars truck or something. Ice cream still didn’t sound as good as a smoke. Nevertheless, Kobra continued on, clearly not sensing how little Ghoul planned on listening to him. He did that, sometimes. “Look, everything fucking hurts and, like, my _heart_ isn’t supposed to hurt from glitching—” 

“Sounds like emo poetry if I’ve ever heard it, loverboy.” 

“Hey! Shut up! I haven’t _ever_ written emo poetry, thank you very much. That’s Pepsi’s job. Like I was saying, though, everything hurts but Poison’s okay and you can go visit him later, yeah? For now, shouldn’t you stop trying to get yourself killed and, like, comfort Jet? _Who was also kicked out?”_

“Funny coming from the guy who got to stay with Poison. Where’s the hypocrisy?” 

“I _wasn’t,”_ Kobra spat, twisting his face up in Kobra’s signature anger. It never left him, the wildcard he was. “We have powers. We’re not really welcome in the same areas as non-supers because they don’t fuckin’ think we can control ourselves. So, no, I didn’t get to stay with him.” 

“But you’re family.” Okay, maybe Ghoul just… didn’t want to listen to Kobra. He was allowed to make one good point a year, but that didn’t mean Ghoul had to listen to it. “You can prove that. DNA ‘n all.” 

“It doesn’t work like that and you know it!”

It was true; Ghoul knew exactly how it worked and he had no doubt in his mind that Kobra had been kicked out, too. Less because he wasn’t _family_ and more because of the terrifying display of superpowers. Wasn’t that fun? 

Ghoul didn’t respond, and Kobra didn’t seem to expect him to. The silence they sat with wasn’t companionable; neither of them wanted to be there. Neither of them wanted to be in the Underground, a caged-in bomb waiting to go off while their best friend and brother respectively was sitting comatose in a hospital bed with biased nurses and Jet was _who knows where._

Nevermind the fact that neither of them had ever even _heard_ of the Underground before. 

Safe to say, neither of them were having good days. So, Ghoul tried to act as though he didn’t want to punch Kobra in the face, virtue being that Kobra had a very punchable face. “So. Did they patch up your wound or did you do that yourself?” 

“What, think I did it wrong?” 

Ghoul rolled his eyes, once again repressing the urge to shove Kobra. Destroya, if only they were back on solid ground and he could shove Kobra without the threat of _falling to their deaths._ “No, I’m jus’ asking. Making small talk or whatever. While we wait for _your_ brother—” 

“And your crew leader!”

“—to get out of a coma.” 

Kobra hummed, a sound heavy with the weight of something he didn’t seem to want to share with Ghoul. Ghoul didn’t mind. Plus, when Kobra slouched like that, he was far closer to Ghoul’s height, when they were sitting down. “I don’t wanna fight with you. I don’t… We’re stuck here until Poison gets better.” 

That… Well, that wasn’t what Ghoul was expecting, that was for sure. He would almost rather try to make out the graffiti on the far, rocky cavern wall than try to figure out why Kobra was coming to that conclusion. 

But Kobra kept talking. “And if we’re fighting, we’re not gonna accomplish anything. I have a feelin’ we’re about to sink to our shoulders in muck and I don’t need to be fighting with you while fighting for my life.” 

“You don’t have future vision too, do you, you overpowered motherfuck?” What? Ghoul didn’t know how else to talk to Kobra. Did it classify as _bickering_ if it wasn’t meant to incite a fight? 

Kobra reciprocated the eye roll from earlier, swatting his hand through the air at absolutely nothing. “No, that’s not my thing. But…. offer still stands. Peace treaty for now, and then you can go back to trying to dye my hair in my sleep, yeah?” 

“You did that to me!” Still, Ghoul knew that he was being offered something he couldn’t ignore. And it wasn’t like it was something serious, but it was also an olive branch, and if they were going to be family, they probably needed to be more than the estranged cousins who tried to murder each other at family dinners. “Uh… Yeah. Sure, I guess. We can do that.” 

“You sure?” 

“Positive. On your straightener, positive.” 

“Only straight thing about me,” Kobra mumbled under his breath, and Ghoul would be lying if he said he didn’t smile; it was a cheap joke and they both knew it, but the both of them were smiling, and in that moment, Ghoul could pretend his life didn’t fucking suck. 

Yeah, too bad it didn’t really work like that, huh? 

_ 

“And you’re certain something is going to happen?” 

Jet was, by far, the most observant of them all. Despite Ghoul having the sharpest vision, he didn’t notice shit, let alone small, miniscule details that slipped past other people. 

Slipped past everyone _except_ Jet. 

Jet nodded, a grim expression flashing across their face like lightning striking through the heart of a thunderstorm. “We’re going to be stuck here for it.” 

“Do you think we should hide, then?” 

While it didn’t make much of a team base, Ghoul, Jet, and Kobra were all piled on top of the hood of the Trans Am, huddled with crossed-legs and bonking-knees and discussing what Jet saw. 

Kobra scoffed at the notion, the angry war-chaser he was. Inexperienced in the laws of grief, but hungry to learn them; that was the Kobra Kid. “We’re not hiding from anything. This might be a good way to establish ourselves beyond Poison.” 

Jet was the first to kick _that_ idea out the window, and rightfully so. “Yeah, that’s not a good idea, not right now. Poison’s our brand, and he’s also the only reason we haven’t been _shot on sight._ He needs help, and we’re gonna make sure he gets it.” 

“Why would we be shot on sight?” Once again, Ghoul was well aware he wasn’t the most observant, okay? 

With a sigh, Jet pinched the bridge of their nose and turned their full attention to Ghoul. “Look, we’re Killjoys, and this isn’t a place for us, yeah? We’re open skies and motor oil, they’re more like sewers and spray paint. We just don’t mix. And, yeah, that sounds like the Outsiders, I know, but they just don’t like us.” 

“I’m guessing that’s why we didn’t know about them before now,” said Kobra dryly, heavy-lidded eyes speaking exhaustion to the stars. Or _would,_ if the stars weren’t covered by the fucking _rock,_ and _more_ because he had a feeling they were under Battery City. 

Jet nodded once again. They seemed to do that more often than they didn’t. “Exactly. We have no idea where our place is here. We have to be under the radar whenever this big thing happens, when the doctor gets back.” 

“Wait, wait,” Ghoul said, because of course he wasn’t caught up when Kobra was; Kobra eavesdropped more than he was willing to admit and they all knew it. “So, this is about that doctor dude missing? How is that going to spell disaster for the entire Underground? Did I miss something?” 

“You want the watered down version or the actual version?” 

Before Ghoul could answer Kobra’s question, Jet was already talking, smiling lopsidedly; it didn’t reach their eyes. It never did, anymore. “So, I did some poking around after I was kicked out of the infirmary, and the whole reason they’re missing their doctor? He’s just… MIA.

“And he’s not, you know, he’s not like a regular doctor. He’s a dude named _Dr. Benzedrine,_ apparently he also, like, runs this place, or something like that. Whole crew, and no one’s seen any of ‘em in _weeks.”_

“Once again, what does this mean for _us_ specifically?” Look, everyone had their issues, and Ghoul wasn’t going to be the one poking a wasp’s nest with a ray gun. “Leader dudes are gone, there’s a scramble for power, or a scramble over who needs to step up?” 

Kobra shook his head, just _needing_ to interject. “More like no one knows what to do. The nurses aren’t trained for surgeries and all that jazz; the marketplaces don’t know when to close, people don’t know when curfew is. Everything’s at a standstill, but gears have to keep turning eventually.” 

Oh, fuck. Okay, Ghoul understood now. “So… How do we stay under the radar if our crew leader is in the center of it all, since missing doctor leader dude is, you know, a _doctor?”_

“Yeah, that’s another problem,” said Jet, their voice weighed down with exhaustion. More than exhaustion. _Fear._ “The platform where Benzedrine makes all his declarations, leader-type shit? Only accessible through the Infirmary.” 

“Sounds like one hell of an infirmary,” Ghoul huffed, crossing his arms and ignoring the sliver of pain shooting up his arm. 

“It is. It’s a med-bay, a lab, a pathway to the platform, on and on the list goes. This place isn’t organized at _all.”_ Wasn’t it ironic that _Kobra_ was the one saying that? 

Nevertheless, that didn’t matter. Peace treaty and all. Ghoul rubbed his face, fingers coming away covered in cold sweat and dirt. “Fuck, we basically can’t do anything. Got it. Didn’t you say this place had showers, though?” 

“I don’t know where they are, but yeah. There are showers.” 

So, that was settled. They would wait for the inevitable declaration of war in whatever form it came in due to the lack of leadership pushing the Underground to a breaking point, like they’d seen happen time and time again in the Desert, and in the meantime, they would wait for Poison to wake up so they could get the hell out of there.

They would wait for Poison to wake up, and shower, and do _laundry,_ and, hell, maybe even give the Trans Am a wash. Maybe even get some new paint! None of them had any carbons on them, but theft was easy if you knew how to do it right, and as loathe as Ghoul was to admit it, Jet was certainly a jack of all trades who knew how to do the _best_ tricks. 

Marketable skills, really. 

It was a shame they didn’t have Kobra’s bike, ‘cos a place as big as the Underground certainly had a racetrack; Kobra was a motorbaby at heart, living on the fumes of fame he got from winning races and kicking up dust in the wake of his problems.

Well, when Poison woke up, they could go back to their base. Their _home._ And they would be family, and everything would be fine. 


	2. the doctor's in!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fun Ghoul is trying his best to adjust to his new circumstances, but fighting villains while hobbling around in his towel isn't high on his priority list. 
> 
> Kobra Kid is pretty damn sure his comatose brother is laughing at him, and he sort-of wants to get into a fistfight with a goth kid who keeps pissing him off.

Everything would not be fine. Because, as they all expected, Jet was right. 

Jet was right, of course they were, and Ghoul was in the middle of coming back from a shower when all hell broke loose. They had been in the underground for five days. Certainly long enough for anything to happen when it didn’t need to, and  _ something happened.  _

Fucking great, wasn’t it? 

He was in a  _ towel a _ nd he was supposed to try and stop hell from happening? Yeah, no, the devil did not get to see his dick. 

Regardless, he cursed,  _ cursed  _ hearing all the chaos coming out of the white noise, out of everything that could happen, it had to happen while he was in a towel.

Okay, okay, where was Kobra when you needed him? Not fucking there, that was about right. 

Never fucking there. Kobra was never fucking there when you needed him and that was a well-known fact. 

Nevertheless, the place Ghoul needed to be was the Infirmary because that’s where he heard the crashing sound and that was where the glass was raining down from, the towel around his waist was loose and he was trying to throw his shirt over his head as he was running. It was not working out. 

In fact, it was working out so badly that it was no wonder he managed to trip over himself, and, fuck, fuck this. Fuck that. 

Everything was going down, hell was breaking loose like Jet said it would, and Ghoul had to stop to put his fucking pants on. Yeah, so, that was embarrassing enough, and it didn’t help that he had managed to forget that he needed to put boxers on, too, and he abandoned his towel on the catwalk after that, running far quicker than he had when he was trying to hold it up. 

The Infirmary wasn’t doing so hot. 

Kobra was there, of course he was, because he could glitch and the rest of them couldn’t and nothing was on fire, thank the Witch; at least it wasn’t on fire yet, considering that was Ghoul’s ability. 

Fuck, fuck, where was that screaming coming from? 

Wherever it was coming from, Ghoul realized that he needed to get it to stop; it sounded like someone who was in trouble, and it was his job to make sure no one fucking died in an incident because of… 

Oh, hey, that looked like it might be doctor leader dude! Oh, fuck, _ it looked like it might be doctor leader dude.  _

“Is he -?” 

“No, he is clearly not okay!” Kobra grit out, and Ghoul had no fucking clue what he was doing since Kobra’s back was turned to him, but from what he could see, Kobra’s muscles were straining against something… someone… Oh! He was fighting with doctor dude. 

Wait for a second, why was he fighting with the doctor dude? How did the doctor dude get there? Or… 

Doctor dude wasn’t even touching Kobra. Ghoul confused himself. 

Doctor dude was way far away from Kobra, on the other side of the Infirmary, and - fuck, what was his name again? Ghul had far too many things to focus on and if he was struggling to remember the doctor’s name it was going to be - Oh! Dr. Benzedrine. His name was Dr. Benzedrine. 

Well, Dr. Benzedrine was on the opposite side of the Infirmary, twisting his arms this way and that as though performing a spell, like old wizards used to do. Kobra was nearly mimicking him, but seemed to not want to and… Oh. 

Was Benzedrine superpowered? 

Ghoul’s life just got a hell of a lot harder, fuck - and there was still that screaming, and when he turned his head, there was a little girl peeking out at him with bright pink hair, curled up underneath a table with a piece of… something embedded in her arm. 

“Hey,” Ghoul said, offering her a welcoming smile as he walked over to her, reading carefully on the broken glass and debris; he didn’t need Benzedrine realizing he was there, too. The doctor’s full attention was on Kobra, and it needed to stay that way. 

The girl flinched away from him, and Ghoul dropped the smile, realizing why she did when she looked up at him with fear in her eyes, flickering her gaze down to his mouth.  _ His scar.  _

Oh, great, he was scaring kids now, huh? “My name’s Fun Ghoul, and I’m gonna help you out of here, yeah?” 

“He’ll see you!” While she spoke in a whisper, her voice was light as air, and managed to carry through the Infirmary.  _ Fuck.  _ “He’ll - he’ll see you!”

“Quieter, sweetheart,” said Ghoul, kneeling down to her height and offering a hand underneath the table, though he knew he was blocking the light, and blocking her view of whatever the hell was happening with Kobra and Benzedrine. “Okay? Did you see what’s happening? Why are you here? 

“Well - well my auntie said somethin’ was wrong with me an’ she took me here an’ then he - he showed up!” 

Yeah, because that was super helpful. Great! Ghoul didn’t blame her, of course, because she was in shock, and she would stay that way. Still, he gestured for her to come out of her hiding space, making a show of talking secretively. “Okay, you come here, and I’ll run you out of here! And then we can find your mama.” 

“She - she left me here.” 

Oh. Well, that was something to sort out later, wasn’t it? Ghoul prayed it wasn’t another case of child abandonment, but… But it probably was. He didn't know how the Underground was with that, but… 

Stay on task! 

The little girl bumped into his chest, and Ghoul was swung violently back into reality; right, he was running a little girl out of a battlefield. She wasn’t his problem beyond that. 

Ghoul ignored the ache in his chest when he thought about it like that, but he smiled at her once again, gentle, brushing dirt off her face with his thumb before hiking her up to sit more comfortably on his chest, and identifying the nearest route out of there. 

The nearest route was the door, but the door was blocked by… By a table, okay, okay, not going that way. 

The girl couldn’t have been any older than twelve, maybe, not with the childish lilt to her voice, just about bordering on puberty cracks, like she’d been picking up more advanced words here and there to sound more like an adult, and Ghoul bounced her like a baby on his hip - broken window. 

Broken windows meant there was a fifty-fifty chance of there being solid ground or a ledge. 

Fifty-fifty chance of killing two people with one fall. Well, Ghoul wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to see what Benzedrine was doing with Kobra, so he darted toward the window, toward the window,  _ toward the window -  _

Something was in front of the window, move, move, change course - Ghoul crashed into a wall, hitting the corner with his shoulder blade rather than with the child, and Kobra was no longer locked in some weird non-physical battle; rather, he was in front of the window, flickering, flickering like he was trying to glitch and failing miserably. 

The doctor’s voice could only be described as  _ venomous  _ and as yellow as his eyes. “No one’s leaving here, Fun Ghoul.” 

“How do you know my name?” Ghoul said, evenly, or so he thought, for the situation.

But the little girl whimpered, trying to curl away from Ghoul, and a smell of  _ burning  _ entered his nose and - and fuck! Fuck, he cooled down, or tried to, but there was no doubt a handprint burn on the little girl’s blue flower shirt. 

There were no doubt blackened footprints on the concrete. 

“I know a lot of things. I know your friend here can  _ glitch. _ ” 

Only Kobra called it glitching, and it caught on with the rest of them. It was teleportation. 

_ Who the hell was this guy?  _

Ghoul swallowed, bouncing the little girl on his hip, holding her just a little tighter. “What, hate Killjoys that much?” 

Whatever Ghoul’s doing, distracting the doctor, is making it easier for Kobra to escape whatever grip Benzedrine has on him, straining against his own body with more ease and less training muscles. 

The doctor didn’t seem to notice. “No. No, you  _ all  _ need to  _ burn.”  _

The little girl fell to the ground, Ghoul having dropped her, and - and he didn’t mean to drop her, he didn’teven remember moving his arms, and - and oh, fuck,  _ fuck.  _

_ That’s  _ what the doctor was doing. Ghoul’s body temperature was rising; he could feel the steam coming off his skin, the leftover water from his shower bubbling up and evaporating from the height, could feel the way his fingertips  _ burned  _ as though they were too close to the fire. 

_ But it didn’t feel like that.  _

It made him warm; it never burned. 

It never burned, but he wasn’t controlling his own power. 

He wasn’t controlling his own  _ body.  _

When he spoke, his vocal cords protested, trying and trying to keep the syllables in his throat. Like he was five years old again, with a slit mouth and hasty stitches. “I’m not burning anything. I’m not.” 

“Who says you have a choice?” 

Ghoul would say  _ me,  _ but his throat closed up, closed up closed up  _ closed up  _ and his lungs weren’t working and he couldn’t breathe  _ he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe why couldn’t he breathe?  _

“St - stop! Stop hurting him!”

Ghoul’s eyes, the only thing he could frantically move back and forth as he tried and tried and tried to keep from choking to death when there wasn’t anything on or in his throat, flickered to the little girl, tugging on his leg but he couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t feel anything other than his lungs  _ aching  _ for breath, aching for  _ air.  _

The doctor paid her no mind, but the little girl persisted, even as Kobra struggled, flickering between life and wherever the hell he went when he glitched. “Stop! Stop hurtin’ them! Stop it!”

Finally, Benzedrine’s gaze landed on the little girl, though they  _ burned  _ the same color Ghoul’s flames  _ would  _ if they were normal; he snarled at her, and momentarily, Ghoul could breathe - but it was gone soon as it came. 

“What do you  _ want? _ ” Benzedrine asked, the yellow behind his eyes flickering back to a less grotesque yellow, something, something lighter underneath there.

Like he wasn’t acting like himself. 

But, hey, Ghoul was burning up from the inside out, so it’s not like he could do anything to help with that and holy fucking shit what was Benzedrine going to do? He couldn’t - no, no, he couldn’t hurt that little girl, she’s been hurt enough,  _ he couldn’t hurt that little girl.  _

“Stop… Stop hurting them…” The little girl was far more quiet and timid than she was before, but it wasn’t like Ghoul blamed her in the slightest; Benzedrine was pulling their stings like fucking puppets, and Ghoul’s fingers were starting to go numb. 

And if they went numb, if he couldn’t feel them, that meant he was  _ losing,  _ because it was  _ his  _ power underneath his skin that Benzedrine was trying to control. wasn’t it? 

Ghoul’s ability. The pyro-whats-it that Jet called it, the  _ flame  _ that had come built-in with tragedy since he was a child. That’s all Benzedrine wanted.

Still, the doctor's gaze softened when he responded to the little girl, and some feeling came back to Ghoul’s palm. Of course, it was  _ burning,  _ but it was something and Ghoul couldn’t  _ scream,  _ couldn’t scream, because he couldn’t  _ breathe  _ and it didn’t fucking matter, didn’t it? 

“They’ve done bad things. They deserve it,” Benzedrine said, soft, inching closer to the little girl with every step he took. “They deserve to burn. But you don’t. Run along now, bunny, run.” 

The little girl swallowed, taking a step closer to Benzedrine. Ghoul’s throat opened up, though his gasps for air didn’t seem to impede the interaction in the slightest. “You - you’re doing bad things. And.. and they jus’ wanted to help and… and. And don’t hurt them!”

She was afraid, she was so fucking  _ afraid  _ to the point where Ghoul could  _ see  _ her entire frame shaking, trying to hide from the heat emanating from Ghoul’s chest and the wispy, cold shadows keeping Kobra in a perpetual state of almost glitching, but she wasn’t shying away from Benzedrine. 

From the doctor who was causing all this. The one she was afraid one, the one controlling grown-ass teenagers. 

Benzedrine kneeled down, ghosting his hand to the little girl’s cheek, but he didn’t touch her, and she didn’t flinch. Her voice was even, making eye contact with him; stronger than Ghoul, from the ragged breathing from exhausted lungs. “Let them go. They just want to help.” 

Like a flip had been switched, Ghoul crumpled to the floor - the blood on his body felt like  _ his own,  _ his limbs felt like  _ his own,  _ and the blisters on his palms from the heat of his flames were disappearing, disappearing because they were  _ his  _ and he  _ controlled them,  _ didn’t he. 

The  _ fire  _ in Benedrine’s eyes was back when he turned to Ghoul, standing to his (unimpressive) full height. “Take her and  _ go.”  _

While Ghoul had a quip on the tip of his tongue, a snappy,  _ I thought you wanted to bring this place down,  _ he kept it in check, and the little girl rushed back to him, tears running down her dirty, chubby face. 

Save her, then get himself killed. 

“Kobra, get the door,” said Ghoul, demanding, even, bouncing the little girl on his hip once again because what else was he going to do? She was still a child and she deserved to be treated as such, didn’t she? 

Kobra, who had escaped the prison of Benzedrine’s powers, didn’t say anything - the only communication he gave was a grim expression as he glitched toward the door, briefly falling against the debris when he got there. 

He pushed it to the side, no more…  _ fight  _ left in him, it seemed. He was  _ done  _ with Benzedrine. 

But that wasn’t an option. 

Still, with a tense silence following them as Ghoul left, the sound of echoing footsteps the only adorning sound to an Infirmary of ruin, it wasn’t  _ right.  _

There were  _ people  _ there. 

Not only were there people there, but Poison was also in the Infirmary... And if he got hit with any of the debris or if he overloaded again or… Or, fuck, if Benzedrine controlled Poison the same way he just controlled the two of them… 

There had been enough black-outs already, hadn’t there? 

And Ghoul wasn’t even wearing a fucking  _ shirt! _

Maybe Ghoul wasn’t thinking right, was numb to the situation in the same way a firefight was an old friend - but they walked,  _ walked  _ out of the Infirmary with no urgency in their steps, down the catwalks, to the nearest empty platform. 

“You stay here, okay?” Ghoul mumbled, pulling a tight smile when the little girl looked up at him with worried eyes - and removed it just as soon, seeing the way she whimpered with the scar along his mouth. 

Nevertheless, she nodded, silent. Must’ve used up all her words trying to keep the crazy fucking doctor from killing them. 

Neither Ghoul nor Kobra bothered to keep her out of the loop as they talked above her head, tension coating the Underground as thick as honey. “What the fuck  _ was  _ that?” Kobra whispered, heavy and angry, angry, always angry.

Not the time to be angry, was it? 

Ghoul shook his head, running a hand through his ratty, tangled hair. He really needed to dye it again, huh. “I have no clue. We need Jet, see if they can, like, charm ‘im or anything.” 

“Otherwise we’re fucked?” 

“Absolutely, utterly fucked.” 

If the situation wasn’t as dire as it was, Ghoul would stop to think about how they were all like superheroes in the old comics he used to read, or the ones that Poison would write and Kobra would draw. 

But in reality, they didn’t have the time for reminiscing if they were going to make sure that Poison didn’t become an electrical outlet for a mad doctor, and all it took was eye contact for the pair of them to take off running, back to the infirmary. 

_ Fuck, _ Ghoul winced, another glass shard underneath his foot; if he wasn’t a Snow Storm, born in the sands, then the soles of his feet would be nothing more than fucking  _ tatters  _ right now, but that’s what he got for being  _ clean,  _ he supposed. 

“Fuck’s Jet?” Kobra asked, barely heard over the white noise drowning out everything else.  _ White noise, white noise.  _

It was never  _ actually  _ white noise, but Ghoul could tune everything out. 

He wasn’t there to be a hero. He was saving his fucking friend, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he? 

“I don’t know!” And the time to look for Jet was long gone as K0obra and Ghoul rushed in, like fucking idiots, like fucking idiots because they somewhat-knew what Benzedrine could do and they were rushing back in anyway.

Somewhere along the line, though Ghoul didn’t know where, he picked up a wrench off the ground. 

Time gets harder and harder to tear apart when he’s running, rushing; it was an eternity to get there and no time at all. 

And the situation would’ve been over if Ghoul had better aim; instead, rushing through the infirmary door, the wrench flying out of his hand - It hit Benzedrine’s chest.

Benzedrine barely even  _ flinched.  _

“Back, are you?” Benzedrine asked, monotone, even, the yellow in his eyes flashing brighter than ever before.  _ That meant something. It had to.  _

Right? Or is Ghoul losing his vision, too?

“Couldn’t get enough of your sick bantering,” Kobra snarled, the fucking dumbass that he was, fists clenched tight by his sides and tighter still when Ghoul sees him vanish into thin air - reappearing with his arm wrapped tight around Benzedrine’s throat, behind him, choking him. 

A taste of his own medicine. There wasn’t enough time to think about how fucked up that was. 

“Need any help over there?” Ghoul mumbled, absolutely rhetorical, searching for something, anything, he can throw or use as a weapon because there were sleeping people and fire was a dangerous toy to play with. 

He  _ wasn’t going  _ to use his powers if it fucking killed him. 

Speak of the Devil and he shall reign; Ghoul’s attention was violently brought back to the scene at hand when Benzedrine stopped clawing at his own throat, instead motioning with his hands faster than Ghoul could process with the white lab coat around his shoulders flaring at the motion - 

And Kobra was gone. 

_ Kobra was fucking gone -  _ wait, no, no, “Kobra!” shouted Ghoul, frantically searching the room to find where the sick  _ cracking  _ noise was that no doubt came from Kobra colliding with something. 

Idiot! Fucking idiot!

With Kobra out of the way, Benzedrine turned to Ghoul with a wicked grin. “And then there was one. I told you to leave. She didn't want you hurt.” 

“She doesn’t want you to hurt people!” Ghoul wondered, briefly, if the back-and-forth was taking the same route as Kobra, but it was too late to go back next and there wasn't much Ghoul could do regardless. 

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” 

“That doesn’t mean you can’t just… stop!”

Benzedrine’s eyes dimmed, again, and his head hung, but it was as though he was fighting with himself - he didn't know how he wanted to react and there wasn't any real way to know whether he was telling the truth or if he was lying to save himself. “I can’t. I can’t and you’re going to help me, you know, you’re going to make this all go away.” 

Well, if he hadn’t sounded like a mad doctor beforehand, that was a new record!

Ghoul had never been into the mad scientist types, though, and there’s enough going on in his life, thank you very much. “I’m gonna have to make a raincheck on that, but maybe next Tuesday?” 

“You don’t  _ have  _ a choice.” There was something dark behind the phrase, something darker than Benzedrine, but something melancholic in his voice. Like he didn’t like what he was becoming. 

But, hey, you know what? Ghoul had no fucking care in the world for sympathetic  _ villains.  _

Before he could make another quip, run over to Kobra, stage a fucking coup or anything like that, Benzedrine was motioning with his arms again and  _ Ghoul couldn't fucking move.  _

Yeah, he should’ve expected that. 

Regardless, he struggled, against Benzedrine, against himself, because he could  _ feel  _ the way his core temperature was rising, could feel the way his muscles were straining and protesting against the violation of his rights, of his  _ body.  _

Because that was what was being taken from him.  _ His control.  _

And the flames that were licking up the palms of Ghoul’s hands agreed, the burning of a flame that isn’t burning hot enough, bright enough, that isn’t being  _ handled right.  _

Benzedrine didn’t care either way. It didn’t hurt him. It hurt  _ Ghoul,  _ and Benzedrine wanted to  _ burn the place down.  _

Where the fuck was Kobra, again? Passed the fuck out? Great. 

He didn’t need to divert his energy to bitching and Ghoul made quick work of assessing his surroundings; everything was the same dull grays and purples, with debris from around the Infirmary and the broken windows everywhere, patients lying mostly passed out or huddled up in their cot. 

Poison was still passed out. And he was behind Benzedrine. 

Benzedrine followed Ghoul’s eye, toward the hospital bed, toward  _ Poison.  _ “What’s that? Friend of yours?” 

Ghoul refused to answer, locking his mouth shut with a shake of his head. 

Despite his best efforts, Benzedrine didn’t buy it, and it was a shitty diversion, anyway. “They are, aren’t they? Why are you so worried about me, then?” 

Benzedrine’s lab coat billowed out behind him as he walks, and Ghoul pretends that he didn’t… 

_ Oh.  _

Oh, Ghoul had an idea. An incredibly stupid idea, but he wasn’t in charge of his own body, and there weren't many more options left for him if he didn’t manage to succeed with this incredibly stupid one. 

One thing that came from having  _ fire powers,  _ as he lovingly called them, was that he was  _ fireproof.  _ His own body was immune to his own flames, and he experimented, sometimes, but mostly everything that  _ touched  _ his body was immune to the flames. 

However, when Benzedrine started to activate his powers earlier, before the little girl convinced him to let her go, it  _ burned.  _ It burned and it wasn’t supposed to burn, because Ghoul was immune to his own abilities, unless…

Unless his body recognized that it wasn’t him who was controlling his powers. 

If his body could recognize, hey, he’s not the one behind the helm, then… Then wouldn’t it stand to reason that whatever Benzedrine was doing to him,  _ controlling  _ him, could be overloaded in the same way Poison made lightbulbs shatter when he was pissed off? 

So much of Poison’s power went into the lightbulb that it  _ shattered  _ because the lightbulb was a source of power, a fuel… 

And if Benzedrine was trying to control Ghoul’s powers, and Ghoul’s powers somehow… someone used that  _ control  _ as a bridge… Then it would be the same deal, right? 

Yeah, he doubted it. 

Nevertheless, there wasn't much else Ghoul could do when he couldn’t  _ move,  _ couldn’t speak, couldn’t do fucking anything other than think really hard if he wanted to give himself a headache. 

“You’re not burning  _ anything,  _ Benzedrine,” Ghoul spat, or  _ tried to spit,  _ but all he did was get the words out before his mouth was being closed. 

Benzedrine moving his body around like a fuckin’ puppet meant that connection was stronger than it would be if he was just idly making Ghoul  _ stand  _ there, and Ghoul took the opportunity, the  _ only  _ opportunity he had - 

It fucking  _ burned;  _ it burned and it burned so hot that Ghoul wouldn’t be able to scream regardless of Benzedrine’s hold on him because it was  _ cold;  _ it was cold and  _ numb  _ and it wasn’t like Ghoul was used to he wasn’t supposed to feel the flames, the fire, but he  _ could,  _ but he could and he was  _ pushing  _ it. 

It didn’t show, outward; he was hovering in mid-air with cold emanating from his chest like a bomb about to go off but you couldn’t  _ tell  _ what he was doing,  _ taking control back;  _ you couldn’t see the metaphysical wire line between Benzedrine and Ghoul going up in  _ flames -  _

But you sure could see the way Benzedrine  _ screamed.  _

Slamming onto the ground, Ghoul couldn’t even  _ feel  _ his own face, and it was right in front of him - er, it was on him, wait a second… 

What was he doing again? Ugh, his head ached. 

Regardless, he pushed himself up off the ground, his arms shaking from the effort to hold his body off the ground, surveying the scene - he wasn’t the only one on the ground. 

And it was  _ silent.  _

The breathing of the patients sitting in their cots paralyzed with  _ fear  _ was silent; no one was walking around; no one dared to  _ breathe  _ too loudly. 

And Benzedrine? Benzedrine was crumpled into a ball with his lab coat covering him as though a blanket; as though he was a fucking harmless child. Harmless, his ass. 

Ghoul stood, scoffing, wincing at the debris digging into his feet when he stood, turning to the patients. “So, your doctor buddy here needs a little help. Anyone got any rope? Handcuffs?” 

No one answered. Fucking great. 

Ghoul tried his best at a smile, refusing to make eye contact with anyone in the tell-tale hot purple hospital gowns. “He’s passed the fuck out with some, uh,  _ major  _ burns from what I’m gonna guess, does  _ anyone  _ know where some fucking  _ handcuffs  _ are?” 

“Whatever,” Ghoul scoffed under his breath, turning on his heel (which, fucking painful, okay?) to find his stupid, impulsive, rash,  _ quick to get knocked out  _ companion, crewmate, whatever you wanted to call him. 

Ironically, he was passed out in nearly the same place as earlier; uncomfortably lying across a section full of broken glass by Poison’s bedside, absolutely down for the count. 

Well, the brothers were together, that was something. They would be easy to keep track of, since, you know, they were both unconscious. 

Ghoul sighed. They never could catch a break, could they? He didn’t even have a  _ shirt  _ on and he was playing superpower police or something? Gross. 

So, Ghoul picked his way through the dirty floor back to the door, looking down from the catwalk it led to the mass crowd watching from safe distances. “Sorry for the lack of a light show. Not in the mood. Seriously, does  _ anyone  _ know where any handcuffs are?” 

In particular, he’d like some  _ power dampeners,  _ but that was far too high tech for the Underground to actually have them - only a few  _ Killjoys  _ had them, and they raided BLI trucks all the fuckin’ time. 

So, Ghoul would settle for handcuffs.

“Ghoul!” 

Wait, that was - Yes! Ghoul grinned, looking down at Jet rushing to him with three others in tow and worry flashing across their face like a tidal wave. 

The catwalks didn’t shake in the slightest as Jet ran, careless, weaving in-and-out through the crowd, up to the Infirmary, up to the fucking wreck that used to the be Infirmary, anyway. They weren’t even out of breath. 

“What’s up, Spaceman?” Ghoul tried to play it off as whatever, as nonchalant, but they both knew that wasn’t the case; they were living on borrowed time until Benzedrine was in cuffs and restrained in some way. 

“There was trou - er, where’s your shirt? Where’s Kobra? Where are your  _ boots?”  _

“Hey, why don’ you let a guy live his life, yeah?” 

Before they could bicker more, or Jet could find a way to cleverly tell Ghoul he was an idiot, one of the people behind them surged forward, dark eye-rings around brown eyes and brown curls. “Hey, knock it off, alright? It’s Benzie in there, isn’t it?” 

Ugh, cute pet names. Oh  _ dear Lord.  _ “Uh, do you mean maniac controlling let’s-burn-it-down dude? Yeah, absolutely! But no Benzie.” 

“Shove it,” another one of them said, eyes lined heavily with black eyeliner. They did pull it off, Ghoul had to admit. “You know where Benze is? Did you hurt him?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks for asking.” 

“I figured as much. Put a fuckin’ shirt on.” Damn, eyeliner-one was snappy, wasn’t he? “Is he hurt?” 

Ghoul sighed heavily, rolling his eyes, but he gave them the information they wanted when Jet gave him a pointed look. “He’s knocked out. I would, uh, I would check his chest for burn marks. Second degree, probably.” 

He didn’t mention that was his fault, and he wasn’t going to, because he’d put his powers on display enough; at the very least, superpowers had been on display enough for a lifetime, between Benzedrine’s control and Kobra’s glitching. 

The eyeliner character swore under their breath, but didn’t give Ghoul another look as they rushed into the Infirmary; the third one, a more mellow-looking guy with eye-searingly orange har, shrugged half-heartedly. “Sorry. They’re best friends.” 

And with that, the entire  _ trio  _ was gone, like nothing had ever happened. They better not wake Benzedrine up. 

Still, that wasn’t his business. So, Ghoul didn’t ask questions, instead turning to Jet with a roll of his eyes. “Let me guess, his crew? The whole circus? Power villain league?” 

“Don’t be overdramatic. But yeah, they’re his crew. I’m more concerned about  _ our  _ crew, though, are you okay? Pois okay? Kobes?” 

Ghoul winced, making a show of it. You know what, for as much as what happened, the injury count was rather low. “Yeah, well, Poison’s as fine as he’s gonna be in a coma, I just got tossed around like Raggedy Ann without  _ shoes  _ on, and Kobra managed to get smashed into a wall because he’s  _ stupid.”  _

“Good to see you two are bonding,” Jet said dryly, brushing purple curls out of their face. “So, Benzedrine is restrained? What did he  _ do?”  _

“You weren’t there for it?” Fucking obviously, dumbass, Ghoul thought to himself, but he shrugged nonetheless. “Yeah, so, when I got there- I had to pause to get pants on, by the way, isn’t that bullshit? - anyway, when I got there it was like Kobra was fighting himself, or something, like he was  _ trying  _ to glitch but he couldn’t, and blah blah blah, long story short we rescued a little girl and then went back  _ in  _ like idiots and Kobra got knocked the fuck out.” 

Jet sighed heavily. Ghoul didn’t blame them. “Remind me to never let you tell abridged stories. I mean, he’s clearly… like us. What are his powers?” 

Jet didn’t have to say  _ like us  _ like it was a dirty phrase or something, that it was  _ wrong  _ to have powers. Ghoul, in fact, thought it was fucking cool that he could set shit on fire. 

Yeah, no, the allure wore off when it was always like it was a dirty secret he should keep to himself. 

But that was an argument for a different time, wasn’t it? “Y’know, I don’t really know. All I know about it is that, like… like, Benzedrine was  _ controlling  _ us. I wasn’t in control of my own body. And he could activate my powers, but not in the way they were ‘posed to.” 

“So… How did you take ‘im down?” 

“Without Kobra’s help,” said Ghoul, a wicked grin in place of where his answer should be because he didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to say that he’d  _ burned  _ Benzedrine. He hadn’t burned anyone in years. 

Then again, that wasn’t on accident. He hadn’t burned anyone on  _ accident  _ in years. And he hadn’t burned anyone purposefully in… Well, in about five minutes. 

Before Jet could say anything, because Destroya only knew they were going to comment on how dirty Ghoul was or how much he needed to get medical attention, Ghoul continued. “Anyway, we can talk about it later. Kobra’s passed out next to Poison and I don’t think anything major happened to him, and I’m really fucking hungry.”

#  _ 

So, as it turned out, Kobra was not passed out. 

In fact, Kobra was flashing between this world and wherever the hell he went when he glitched, and it was incredibly painful. At least, it was when he was in the  _ shadow world,  _ as he liked to call it, where everything was four ways to the left. 

To sum it up, it fucking sucked. 

And when he was  _ able  _ to open his eyes without a searing bright light blinding him, he was in  _ regular  _ reality, thank Destroya. 

He also found, rather quickly, that there was glass digging into his back and it was not fun to try and pick out. Kobra groaned, yawning, blinking back all the  _ what the fuck  _ going on in his head. 

The first thing he saw was someone looking at him. 

Kobra tried to bolt upright, because where the fuck was he that prompted someone unknown to be looking at him, but all he accomplished was slamming his head into the stranger’s, sending them both tumbling back. 

“Fuck!” Kobra cursed, rubbing at his head. And his arms. And his stomach. And his legs. And… holy hell, everything hurt to the Witch and back. “Who in the fuck?” 

“Er — I don’t - Uno reverse card!” The stranger said, standing back about five feet, now, heavy eyeliner ringing their eyes, contrasting well with their light umber skin; Kobra briefly thought about asking where they bought their eyeliner. 

“The - the Kobra Kid. He/him. Now your turn?” It ended as though a question, which it wasn’t, but Kobra’s head hurt way too much to care. He needed a good, comatose nap. 

Stupid Poison hogging all the sleep time in his coma. 

The stranger gave him a once over, a big sigh, and offered a hand to help him up. “Mr. Sandman, also he/him. Let me guess, you were involved in the… altercation?” 

“If you want to call that an altercation,” Kobra said, dry and lacking any humor because that was  _ not  _ allowed to be considered something so minimal, “Then I’m just a kinda rebellious teenager. I was in the  _ fight,  _ if that’s what you mean.” 

“Whatever, call it what you want. Seriously, what happened? The other guy didn’t help much.” 

Kobra could only assume they meant Ghoul, but he was a little… Ouch. He bonked his head way too much for this shit. “Yeah, he never does. Was that your friend? Uh, Benzedrine, yellow-eyed motherfuck?” 

“Don’t you mean motherfuck _ er?  _ And, uh, yeah. You could say that. But he doesn’t have yellow eyes.” 

“I’m the guy who got thrown into a wall,” Kobra smiled coldly, sarcastically. “So I think I would know better than you, considering you weren’t there. I’m gonna fucking clock that dick in the face the next time I get my hands on him, and -” 

“And you’re not doing any of that!” If Kobra was any good at reading expressions and body language, and he was, then Sandman was certainly  _ not  _ okay with Kobra punching the lights out of the guy who  _ smashed his entire body against a wall.  _

Something wasn’t adding up right there. 

“Where the fuck is he, anyway?” What? Kobra wasn’t going to play nice. Plus, he just realized, as he batted away the hand Sandman had offered that he’d damn near forgotten about, he was passed out right next to Poison’s hospital bed; therefore, coma Poison was laughing at him. 

Sandman shook his head; Kobra didn’t know whether that was because Kobra refused to take his hand or because he was being an ass. “Can’t tell you. You don’t look like you belong here.” 

“Aren’t you blunt?” 

Kobra pulled himself to his feet with a groan, shaking out his limbs and trying desperately to get them all to stop feeling like  _ static,  _ like he was asleep in the land of the dead. 

Sandman simply shrugged, and Kobra would’ve punched him, too, if he could feel his fingers. So, of course, the insufferable bastard kept talking. Fuck. “Maybe a little, but he’s, well, he’s not usually like that. I’m honestly just here to damage control the situation. You were part of the fight?” 

“No,” said Kobra, sarcasm dripping from his tone in much the same way Poison would ask if something was obvious when it very, very clearly was, and Kobra would give the exact wrong answer just to piss him off. 

“The truth, yeah? It’s important! The Underground needs answers.” 

“Lucky for you, then, that I’m not from the Underground. I’m just here to make sure my brother gets better and that’s all you need to know, sewer rat.”

Well, it was a little early in their relationship to be exchanging insults, but Kobra wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone. He was tired, cranky, covered in bruises and scrapes, and his chest felt  _ icky.  _

If Kobra had his way, and he usually did, then he would  _ never  _ give up control of his own body again. It was beyond violating, the shuddering cold of someone else’s control over him plastered throughout his veins like they had betrayed him. 

Sandman sighed, blocking Kobra from leaving with a forlorn expression on his face; it garnered no sympathy from Kobra, who had a known immunity to puppy dog eyes. “Look, okay, I know he hurt you, and I know kinda what happened, but I have to know so we can  _ fix him  _ and make sure you don’t, like, get your face plastered everywhere ‘cos of this.” 

“I spend more effort getting on Dr. D’s broadcast than I did in this fight.” That was untrue, but Sandman didn’t need to know that. All Sandman needed to know was that Kobra was tired, banged up, and wanted to  _ leave.  _

“I’m sure you do, but this is  _ important.  _ If not to me, and the Underground, then to the rebellion! To BLI!” 

“To BLI?” Kobra had to admit, that piqued his interest; he didn’t actually have anything on his to-do list other than his own investigations of what the hell happened, and if BLI was involved in what could have been an isolated incident among a power hungry Juvee Hall, then Kobra wanted to know. 

It would explain Benzedrine’s banter, or what Kobra had heard of it. Something about flames, something something, but by then he was too busy dealing with his own problems to pay attention to Ghoul playing superhero. 

Ghoul would make a  _ horrible  _ Superman. 

With another nod, Sandman continued in a hushed tone, leaning forward until he was breaking all known societal norms of personal space. “Yeah, BLI. Benze didn’t go MIA ‘cos he’s crazy. He went MIA because… Well, I can tell you later.” 

“You sound like a clickbait ad.” It was working, though, that was the issue. 

“I might. But it’s true. If you’re interested, we’re all going to be in Cavern’s Burough at eight this morning, figuring all of this out.” 

Eight in the morning was way too early to be up for anything that might be considered a hypothetical, Kobra decided, but before he could voice this, Sandman was gone - 

In his wake was Kobra’s own oblong shadow, dissipating into smoke, almost, though that wasn’t possible; it must be a trick of the dim white lighting and the badly painted purple walls. 

Destroya, why was everything purple? 

Ugh, it wasn’t any of his business.

_

It wasn’t any of his business, none of it, from the hot purple to the Benzedrine disaster, but Kobra found that he was still planning on going. He was still planning on going to that meeting if he could manage a way to slip Jet’s watchful eye.

Jet wasn’t a mom-friend, nowhere near it, but they would swat you on the head with the closest object if you hurt yourself more than you already were, and both Ghoul and Kobra had a long history of irritating old injuries. 

At the end of the day, when they all regrouped in the room they were staying in - the Underground worked much like a hotel in that regard - Kobra was about to pass out from exhaustion on one of the uncomfortable beds. 

It wasn’t a  _ homey  _ kind of place, and it was cold and wet and dreary and Kobra missed the  _ sunshine  _ and the heat and he would gladly give up the laundry and showering to be able to go sleep in his own damn bed, and… Oh. Wait. Wasn’t he going to do something? 

“Hey, Jetty?” Kobra asked, putting on his most ridiculous mock smile to say,  _ hey, I’m going to ask you to do something you don’t want to do but you should do it anyway because it’ll make me feel a lot better _ . “Do you know where we parked the Trans Am?” 

“You didn’t leave anything in there, did you?” 

Well, not exactly, but Kobra was tired of insomnia plaguing his eyes, and Runway is at the Diner, where he’s  _ supposed to be,  _ because they weren’t supposed to be in this place!

“Uh, kinda. And you should walk down there with me because I have no fucking clue on how to get back.” 

Jet sighed, pulling their gaze away from whatever they were working on - it seemed to be a musical score, but Kobra barely knew the working definition of that phrase, so he could most definitely be wrong. “Yeah. Ghoul, you want anything while we’re down there?” 

“A plane ticket out of here?” So, Ghoul was tired of the Underground, too. 

Maybe it was a nice place for Juvee Halls, but they were most certainly Killjoys, and they belonged in the desert. They belonged underneath the sun. 

Though, out of all of them, Kobra would think that Ghoul would be the most opposed to leaving early; after all, Ghoul’s the Raven of the group, the only one of them who dresses like a goth outside of the black sands of Zone Five, where the Rival Reckers lurk underneath their strange cloaks. 

He didn’t say any of that out loud, though. Ghoul was  _ sensitive  _ about being a Raven and something like that. 

Jet’s arm looped around Kobra, and Kobra gave the most obnoxious smile he could, all in good fun. 

And once they were out of the room, Kobra felt  _ safer  _ to talk about what happened earlier, with Jet, without Ghoul around. 

Despite the masses around them, minding their own business, it felt more personal, more intimate, and Ghoul didn't allow for Kobra to have anything to himself other than the emotions he would rather keep in the back of his head, and it wasn’t  _ fair.  _

“So there’s going to be a meeting tomorrow,” Kobra hummed, slipping past a stranger pushing a stroller who paid him no mind as they pushed past. “And - and I think I’m gonna go.” 

That, naturally, caught Jet’s attention, the fluorescent lights catching on the sparkles of their eyeshadow. When did they buy more? “‘Bout what? Anything about us?”

“Kinda? But not really, I don’t think. About what happened in the Infirmary.” 

Kobra learned, quickly, that Jet did not want to talk about that from the way their shoulders tensed and their expression became impossible to read. He wasn’t going to ask why, but it wasn’t like Jet. “I don’t think you should do that. Not our business.” 

“Ghoul and I were the only ones there!” 

“There were plenty of people watching. They can describe it just fine.” 

Kobra scoffed, crossing his arms - and if it wasn’t for Jet’s far more observant eye, he would’ve walked himself off one of the catwalks. Dammit, he wanted the sand back! “They couldn’t describe the way Benzedrine, like, controlled our bodies ‘n shit. Or the way Ghoul took him down.” 

“You can’t describe that, either,” said Jet, as though they were talking to a child; it was clear the tone was joking, though, and Kobra appreciated that more than he was willing to admit. “Since you were passed out.” 

“Ghoul told me! And I probably know Ghoul’s powers just as well as he does!”

A frown pulled at Jet’s face, impossible to ignore. “That’s the entire reason I don’t want you there. We’re already Killjoy’s, we don’t need to draw more attention to ourselves, havin’ powers and all.” 

“All I’m hearing are more reasons to go and not listen to you.” 

Jet sighed. “I knew you would. Don’t tell me I didn’t try when you come back with dire consequences on your tail.” 

“Aw, you wound me!”

The rest of their conversation was banter, trying to cycle through old stories and new without acknowledging how everything had shifted fourteen degrees to the right in a matter of days; Poison was comatose, they’d fought in a weird pseudo-battle against a guy who was supposed to be a friend, and Ghoul and Kobra got grossly violated on terms it was hard to explain. 

And they were in a completely new place. A place with working showers, sure, but it didn’t have the same comfort as the Diner’s humid, stuffy, burning hot booths, playing Uno with your crewmates when none of you could sleep. 

So, basically, no, Kobra was not vibing. He was not vibing and he was going to go to that meeting but he didn’t know what else he could do when his life was falling apart and his body was so battered that he couldn’t go down and find someplace where he could train or work out or anything that like. 

He could ask to spar with Ghoul, but they both knew that Ghoul was far more interested in seeing if Kobra lived up to his shit talk when he was lying on the ground with a potentially broken jaw and maybe Kobra was waiting for the day that actually happened, too, but it wasn’t today and it wouldn’t be then, yeah? 

That was fine.

Kobra just needed to find another way to pass the time after he and Jet got to the Trans Am, and - of course the graffitied, ugly masterpiece came into view when Kobra thought that, an eyesore amongst the other cars but certainly Poison’s baby.

A neon-colored car of  _ what the fuck.  _ Yeah, because that’s what everyone needed in their life, right!

Jet smiled, a smile that didn’t reach their eyes and never would; never had, as long as Kobra had known them. “So, what is it that you needed out of the ‘Am?” 

Kobra didn’t have the heart to tell them that he wanted Poison’s blanket, wanted a piece of him to carry around to keep safe when Runway was still at the Diner, so he shrugged instead. “Wanted to tell you what was happening without Ghoul around.” 

That proved to be something worse in Jet’s perspective, something bad considering Kobra wasn’t the same open book around his own crew like the rest of them were. “That’s.. You have to tell Ghoul if you’re going to do something that concerns his information, his knowledge on what happened stuff like that.” 

“So what? Like you said, everyone saw everything anyway, there‘s no use hiding it.” 

”It’s still his choice what he wants other people to know about him.” 

And that’s when Kobra decided that there was enough banter. “Whatever. I’ll just grab something from the ‘Am to appease you, then.” 

From the way that Kobra rummaged through the backseat specifically to find Poison’s blanket, they both knew that he wasn’t doing it to appease Jet and they both knew that he needed that blanket more than he needed air. 

In fact, Kobra probably doesn’t need air as much as he needed sleep. Sleep was a fickle thing if you’re a Killjoy with nightmares whose teddy bear was at his house where he was supposed to be. 

But no, his brother had to get caught up in a coma and leave him here until further notice. Great parenting, right Poison? Right. Yeah, definitely not, not if you asked Kobra. 

“Do you think he’ll mind if I take this?” Kobra asked, giving Jet a set of pleading eyes. 

They both knew that Poison wouldn’t mind one bit, but there was still something in the bottom of Kobra’s stomach that wanted to make extra-sure, wanted to make sure that he wasn't being a clingy annoying little brother (even though that is, by definition, his job as Poison’s brother).

Jet shrugged, instead of answering directly. “Runway back at home, huh?” 

“Maybe. Just wanna sleep, y’know?” 

Jet knew the feeling. Jet knew more than they were telling Kobra, and that was another thing they both knew. 

But they weren’t going to talk about that. 

In fact, they weren’t even going to acknowledge that! No, no, they were going to walk back in silence, with Poison’s ratty old blanket wrapped around Kobra’s shoulders like it could save him from the world as a whole. 

All Kobra could hope was that Poison kept breathing while he slept. 

It was the only thing he hoped every night. That, and something about something, but that wasn’t on topic, was it? 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DR. BENZEDRINE.... he's my favorite and his color choice is simple: purple. and also kobra... most people don't get right back up after being thrown against a wall. just saying.


	3. no one taught you how to read and riot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kobra Kid's got an early morning, though he wasn't expecting to end up in a YA novel royal court with a woman that cuts straight through the issue like her name would suggest, with an agenda that leaves him scrambling with a few curse words on his tongue. Oh, and Sandman is there, too.

For eight in the morning, Kobra was surprisingly well-adjusted. 

And maybe it was because he had gotten up far too early, or maybe it was because he actually slept for once, but he had the feeling it was going to be a good day. 

He was too old to think of that as a good thing, of course, but still, the tentative offer to the universe stood: let him have a good day. Just once, a good day, and - and maybe, if he’s being greedy, let Poison wake up. 

But that was if he was being greedy, and he wasn’t. You can’t be greedy when you’ve already been given a miracle - Poison’s life, even hanging by a thread, was better than no life at all. The Underground wasn’t favorable, but Poison wasn’t in a  _ coffin  _ to see it. 

_ Cavern’s Borough  _ was an oxymoron, but Sandman hadn’t given him the location and Kobra had gotten around to asking an employee when he and Jet had gone for waffles the night prior, because food was a necessity when dealing with far too much action. 

It was a bakery. 

A  _ bakery.  _ They better have complimentary cookies, because an unfamiliar, and  _ unsecure,  _ location kept his nerves alight in ways usually only a firefight could manage. Or Ghoul fucking with his pyrotechnics. . Fuck, he hadn’t had a good cookie in about five years; those had been stale and dry, but anything was better than  _ dog food. _

Nevertheless, he was far more awake than he had originally anticipated; he’d gotten up early, for no particular reason, and ended up toeing around Ghoul and Jet and, despite his previous advice to himself, found what was essentially a gym. 

The meeting wasn’t set to begin for a couple more hours and Kobra hadn’t expected to wake up so early. An exploration of the Underground, he supposed, after he padded past the sleeping forms of Jet and Ghoul. 

Ghoul had taken Poison’s blanket while Kobra was asleep. Huh. Even in sleep, Ghoul knew how to get on his nerves. 

Eventually, though, walking around pointlessly grated on his nerves, and Kobra found his way down to a place he knew well - he would call it a  _ training room,  _ but he supposed the name was  _ gym.  _

No matter where he was, how old he was or wasn’t, a training room was a training room, and it was one of his most and least favorite places. 

The punching bags in the center of the room - which couldn’t  _ quite  _ count as a room, because the platform had half-constructed, cold gray metal framework around it, framing it in but not sealing anything off - provided the same constant thrum of low-level release when his fists made contact. 

Athletic tape, or really, anything to cover his knuckles, was out of the question, but Kobra had been in enough bar fights and enough highly-trained sparring matches to know how, where, and how hard to punch, although he’d still retain some damage. 

It wasn’t a skill he valued. 

Of course, time ticked on, regardless of him standing small in the center of a big room, letting his anger, his worry out onto an innocent punching bag, and soon enough an echoing bell resounded through the Underground. Eight A.M. 

Time for the meeting. The only regret Kobra had was that the lower you went, the  _ colder  _ it got, the more the rocks hoarded their cold temperature and the sweat on the back of his neck froze from where it’d dripped down his spine. 

Kobra could understand why the Lower Levels were less populated; the rocky walls became more jagged, less beaten down by humanity and erosion, and the catwalks became more narrow, twisting, a series of pipes here and there.

Like an unfinished basement, the Lower Levels of the Underground rotted away, and nestled in the center, above the ground but below the populus, rested a bakery with a neon-pink sign, flickering with the lack of secure power. 

Kobra usually gave his brain cell to Poison, but he was fairly certain that, usually, you put a business where you would get customers. Unless there were some dark secrets the Underground was hiding, that was not the case; the place in question, of course, was far too large and ominous to stay out of the tainting of secrecy. 

Meaning, and Kobra wasn’t sure if he hated it or not, that the bakery was a front. 

Did that mean he didn’t get a cookie? 

Much like the diner, a little bell echoed above his head after the rusted silver door opened, and a surprisingly modern digital clock alerted him to the fact that he was fifteen minutes late; just shy of the hour.

In a place where it was a maze to get to the bathrooms, that was pretty damn good, wasn’t it? 

The person behind the counter, kneading dough, and wearing a flour-covered apron over a pin-striped blue suit, smiled at him; not quite warm, but not cold, and certainly not suspicious. “Not here to enjoy the pastries?” 

He must’ve been given an invite, then; Sandman must’ve told the baker he was coming. 

Looking between the tattered posters on the wall from bands ghosted years before Kobra came to be, to the dusty tables and chairs of varying arrays, and the cheesy flower wallpaper, Kobra shook his head. “I was told I was supposed to be here, if -” 

“If you wanted to be. You’re the frat boy Chordettes told me about, I know it; he said you’d be comin’. Go around the kitchen, though the service door.” 

With an awkward smile and an even more awkwardly placed nod, Kobra quickly located the way to the kitchen before he could embarrass himself more. Considering he stubbed his toe on the pastry display before he got there, it didn’t work. 

Actually… “I mean… Since I am here, could I have a pastry? They look really good.” 

Kobra thought they looked good, at the least. He hadn’t had a pastry in years and he wasn’t sure whether that just meant cookies or what, but he was pretty sure they looked good. They looked edible, and that was the point. 

The baker rolled their eyes, wrinkles around their frail old face from laugh lines and stress, Kobra could tell. “They have a tray back there, boy, but you could take another down for me, yeah?” 

With that, they handed Kobra a pink tray full of different looking, what was the word…  _ pastries!  _ A tray full of pastries, large enough that he had to carry it in both hands. 

He couldn’t stub his toe again if he was carrying pastries. He would kill himself if he accidentally dropped these before he could eat them, he decided. 

Fuck, this meeting is  _ so  _ worth it, no matter what Jet said!

Regardless, the kitchen seems to be in perfect silver condition, with a mix-match of equipment all over the place, and Kobra’s careful to follow the baker’s instructions; he ends up finding a push door labeled  _ SERVICE,  _ which sounded like what he was told. 

Kobra kicked the door open with more struggle than he was willing to admit, and found that he, in fact, followed instructions right! That was the good news.

The bad news was that everyone was looking at him, and if he could, he would hide behind the tray of pastries and secretly learn all of their names, as to not feel so out of place.

Then again, he’s the only one with more than a splash of color on him, painting him as the colorfully decorated newbie. 

The first one to speak is Sandman, beaming brightly at Kobra and making grabby hands at the pastries tray. “Hey, Kobra! Glad you made it.” 

Kobra couldn’t help but blurt the first thing that came to mind, fumbling as he handed over the tray. “Why the fuck does it look like I just joined a cult? The fuck are you all looking at?” 

No one ever said he was good at subtlety. Or at being quiet, or… Well, there were a lot of things Kobra was rubbish at. Keeping his mouth shut was one of them. 

Sandman did damage control before Kobra had to, though, shrugging and giving everyone else a look that screamed,  _ I’m sorry, I know he looks like a fish out of water.  _ “Sort of customary when something serious is happening. Like our leader going MIA and then coming back and attacking the place.” 

Kobra wouldn’t classify it as an attack; he would classify it as an  _ episode.  _ Not like a manic episode or anything like that, but something staged, something designed to happen. Because it wasn’t like Benzedrine was trying to hurt him.

He just wanted Kobra to  _ go away,  _ and like a stubborn snake, Kobra refused. 

Nevertheless, he didn’t interrupt Sandman, electing to learn more about what was going on before he threw in his fifty carbons. He’d already made a scene and introduced himself. 

It would’ve been nice if anyone introduced themself to  _ him,  _ though. 

“Why the Infirmary?” Someone asked, someone with a streak of blue through their hair like they were trying to be punk and failing miserably due to their sad, sad attire. 

All the dull colors were going to get irritating when rebellion was all about color. 

Sandman bristled, though didn’t give an exact response. “We don’t know. In fact, how about we brief what we  _ do  _ know before we get into any questions? Do we have any witnesses at the scene?” 

Several people raised their hands. 

“Witnesses in the Infirmary, no outside, please.” 

Several people lowered their hands. In a room of about sixteen, some crammed around a folding table but mostly hanging around the corners of a room, that was a lot. 

And none of them had been in the Infirmary, leaving… “Kobra. What’s your recount of events?” 

If he was going to make another scene, that was absolutely the time to do it, and Kobra does to, grinning at Sandman cheekily before using the edge of Sandman’s chair to push himself up onto the table; the folding table buckled under his weight, but he elected to ignore that. “First off, you all look like this is a fuckin’ funeral. Second, who the fuck are you?” 

Based on how loudly they said their name, you could tell who was important; the louder they were, the more unimportant they were. 

The quieter they were, the more important they were. That was basic for a room like that, full of people hungering for knowledge, something that made them feel better at night. 

Much to Kobra’s amusement, the to-be punk kid in the back didn’t say a name at all. Interesting. He would have to keep an eye on that kid. 

With names to faces that would come up later, Kobra stepped down from the table with a satisfied expression he didn’t actually mean; but he was an actor in a theater; they all were. “I was in the Infirmary, that much is true. I don’t know how the windows got broken, but that’s what alerted me to knowing something was going on.” 

“Why the fuck would you go into the place with broken windows?” asked someone from the back, someone who had shouted their name loud and right into Kobra’s ear. Like a coward, they ask like a coward. 

“Because my brother is there,” said Kobra, cold, no trace of anything left in his voice. There doesn’t need to be, did there? Did there? Or did he need to put on a show for them all, like Poison did when he gave a speech? “And I’d rather like him to not get trampled to death in matters that don’t even concern us. 

“Regardless, it was Benzedrine, all right, if he’s the eight-year-old lookin’ motherfucker who was breaking windows -” 

“You can skip the opinions and simply recount the events,” said someone, someone who had mumbled their name, something like  _ Young Detonator.  _

Kobra rolled his eyes. “Well, I  _ am  _ recounting the events, and you would like me to continue, I can. I’m telling you what I saw in the moment, no?” 

“Kobra, knock it off,” Sandman mumbled, loud enough for a couple of people to hear, but mostly Kobra. Kobra took it as a sure sign that it was working. 

Oh, he loved irritating people that didn’t mean anything to him. 

So, he kept at it. “I don’t know what he was lookin’ for, but he seemed to be looking for something, digging through drawers, stuff like that. I intercepted him when he started making his way to the weird mix of tarps in the corner, and he didn’t really like that.” 

“Didn’t really like that how?” Detonator asked, a cold stare going straight through Kobra’s soul. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t shiver. 

But Kobra wasn’t going to show that, because he wasn’t that kind of person. He was  _ the Kobra Kid,  _ and he wasn’t getting bossed around like a toddler getting into drawers. “He didn’t like me getting in the way of his search or whatever. So I glitched to him, and he totally changed courses. He seemed to have more of an interest in  _ me  _ than he did everyone else, and it was like… It was like I wasn’t in control of myself. Like Benzedrine was.” 

Sandman mumbled something underneath his breath, though Kobra was too far away to hear. It seemed relevant, though, so he’d have to ask later. 

“And then when Ghoul showed up, he got  _ real  _ excited, like Ghoul’s better than me or something. And when that little girl asked for him to let us go, he did, for some fucking reason. That one still eludes me.” 

“Does that imply that he can still be saved?” 

“We never considered that he couldn’t!”

Destroya, Kobra hated the way these people were talking about Benzedrine as though he was another object, another leader, not a whole ass person capable of making his own decisions with what he wanted to do with his life and who he wanted to attack. 

“Shut the fuck up and let me tell the story, yeah?” Kobra didn’t bother to look at their facial expressions to see whether they were judging him or not. He was meant for the desert and the rough and tough, neon lives out there, not all this weird bakery-front thing going on. Maybe it was a bad idea. “Anyway, his eyes were  _ bright  _ fuckin’ yellow, too. They dimmed and glowed at different times, but I figured that was just his powers at work.” 

“Are yours the same?” the boy in the back asked, the one who hadn’t said his name at all. 

And Kobra would be lying if he said he didn’t tense up, that he didn’t try to avoid the question with some bullshit reflecting answer.

But the boy repeated. “Are yours the same? Your eyes are purple, you know.” 

“I’m well aware,” Kobra snapped. “How fucking old are you? Twelve? It’s none of your business where it is or is not power related.” 

Someone else, however, was clearly teaming up with the kid to make Kobra feel even worse. “So, if you had decided you were willing to act in tandem with Benzedrine, then -” 

“I don’t even know what tandem means! Isn’t that a fucking bike or something?:” 

While it wasn’t too difficult to see that Kobra was getting heated, like he  _ always  _ did when people started asking him questions he didn’t want to answer, didn’t know  _ how  _ to answer, Sandman still put a hand around Kobra’s wrist, signaling for him to sit down. 

And, beyond that, signaling that he was going to take the reins, though Kobra only realized that as he took a deep breath through grit teeth and Sandman began talking. “See? Benzedrine didn’t want to hurt anyone. Everyone knows Benzedrine is a scientist, he was most likely looking for his research in a moment of a crazed panic.” 

“You talk about him as though he’s an object,” Kobra said, cold. Fine, he’ll talk like them, act like them, though he rather does hate to give up the grumpy teenager aesthetic he’d had for five years and counting. Or would it be seven years, since he was eighteen…?

Er, that wasn’t how numbers worked, wait a second… 

Destroya, his brain hurt way too much for all that. 

Sandman’s hand squeezed around Kobra’s wrist and, belatedly, he realized that Sandman had never released it. “Benzedrine’s my best fucking friend in the whole world. But it doesn’t change that he’s unstable and  _ dangerous.” _

“By that logic,  _ everyone  _ with abilities is dangerous! Don’t you have abilities, too, Sandman? And Kobra, you never answered the question!”

Kobra was well aware he’d never actually introduced himself, and the glare he shot throughout the room seemed to reflect that. “And how are we acquainted, kind… fuck?” 

“That is absolutely not a proper title,” the person glared, and Kobra pretended that he gave two shits about it when he feigned offense. “Either way, you need to answer the question. What’s the origin of those purple eyes of yours?” 

“They have nothing to do with my abilities.” It wasn’t their business. And if it was, Kobra would make damn sure that it never was again, because he was just here because he was invited and he got pastries. 

And, hey, in the dim yellow lighting, casting a sickly color over everyone’s black felt hoods (well, they weren’t all wearing that, but it  _ felt  _ like it), those pastries looked  _ really good. _

The person persisted. “I don’t care whether it has to do with your abilities. How do we know you’re a trustworthy source of information if you refuse to share knowledge with us? That could potentially be relevant?” 

How the fuck was he supposed to put up with people talking to him as though he was on trial? Did Sandman do this all the damn time? Or did he? 

Kobra grit his teeth, resisting the urge to clench his fists by his sides. Keep calm, keep cool. “My personal life is none of your business. We’re discussing Benzedrine right now.”

Meekly, a figure next to the accuser spoke up. Kobra liked them even  _ less.  _ “I mean, he’s right, though. If we’re talking about Benzedrine, then… then we’re talking about everyone with abilities. Trust and morale is at an all-time low.” 

“Maybe that’s because it’s got you fucks in charge of it,” Kobra mumbled, though he didn’t care who heard and he didn’t care about the cautious squeeze to his wrist that Sandman was giving him. 

“Morale has nothing to do with this!” Someone else proclaimed, and, Destroya, it was like when he was back in the Tower and would have to sit through those debates his teacher made him watch of the squabbling middle schoolers. 

Of course, since Kobra was eighteen, and not in the Tower anymore, he didn’t get to tell them everything they were doing wrong with a blank expression, but the point still stood. 

“Morale isn’t the point, but it does play a factor,” Sandman added in, and, oh, Destroya, it was most definitely like squabbling pree-teens trying to assert their dominance in a conversation. 

Yeah, no, Kobra didn’t fucking care anymore. He snatched one of the pastries off the tray, a red cookie that looked like it had something in it - like a marshmallow or something - and turned his full attention to the pastry. 

Everyone else could fuck off; they didn’t know anything about running a rebellion, and that was coming from a head-strong eighteen-year-old with a hotshot hurricane of a (comatose) brother. 

So, he knew a thing or two about revolutions. 

Nevertheless, he turned everyone out while he was eating, and Sandman’s grip on his wrist disappeared at some point; Kobra’s feet ached from standing in the somewhat packed and grimy little room, though it wasn’t as if he was exhausted. 

If he could spar with any of these people, he would do it in a heartbeat. He  _ loved  _ beating the shi out of people that pissed him off, and they all simultaneously held the crown of most annoying ‘joys he’d ever met. 

Or Undergrounders? 

The name alluded to him. What the fuck was he supposed to call them? 

_ 

The meeting went on like that; Kobra would snatch pastries from the tray and some new bullshit issues would pop up, they would squabble amongst themselves, and then Sandman or Detonator would add something in, and a new topic would arise. 

It was all painfully dull. And whether that was because Kobra was used to the  _ go go go  _ of riots in the Zone One or the bassline heartbeat of Left Hall concerts, or because he was a Killjoy through and through, he didn’t know. 

He didn’t  _ want  _ to know, because all he learned was that most of the Underground didn’t take too kindly to either ‘joys  _ or  _ superpowers. 

And it didn’t help that he had to chime in and continuously remind them that not all Killjoys had powers, that powers weren’t  _ bad;  _ he felt like a Kindergarten teacher, and the  _ moment  _ Poison woke up, they were all going to be long gone. 

Of course, it never worked like that, and he should’ve known he wouldn’t be able to get out of the meeting so easily. 

“Kobra Kid,” someone said, making eye contact as Kobra tried to slip out back through the door, back to the kitchen and then back to Jet, maybe to take a nap. A real shame he couldn’t glitch with so many people around, so many people just  _ waiting  _ for a reason to tell him to leave. “Going so quick? I thought we had things to discuss.” 

“And we’ve discussed them well enough.” Despite the cool tone on his tongue, it was clear that Kobra just wanted to  _ leave,  _ that he was done here. He didn’t have any business here beyond recounting what happened with Benzedrine and learning about BLI, and neither of those had popped up beyond the first conversation. 

“I think you have more to offer the Underground than your spotty record of an altercation. Stay.” 

“Who the fuck are you, anyway?” Kobra huffed, never one to be bossed around. He wasn’t a child anymore, and he wasn’t anyone’s bitch. Hadn’t been for a damn while now. “I’m not takin’ orders from a Halo Head with a stick up their ass.” 

They didn’t even flinch. “Leyline, she/her and I’d take offense, but your choppy slang doesn’t fit me, I’d say. Sit back down.” 

Kobra did so, grudgingly, if only because everyone was looking at him and it would be morally unacceptable to strangle someone in their seat like he oh-so wanted to. It would be  _ wrong,  _ Ghoul’s mocking mouth said in his head, a snicker following the words, as always. 

Leyline smiled, cold and cruel and  _ just  _ like BLI, and gestured the rest of the room to the door. “Everyone beyond the Kobra Kid here and the Suitehearts,  _ out.”  _

Well, that eliminated all of Kobra’s possibility of figuring out who the fuck she was, with red make-up hiding a majority of her face; from harsh cheekbones to sparkling green eyes to the harsh set of her lips and an oddly cute button nose, she was certainly… Something. Like if Snow White joined up with the Evil Queen. 

At the very least, Kobra learned who  _ the Suitehearts  _ were when everyone else left, the sound of moving cloth fading as more and more people exited. Leaving him, Leyline, Sandman, Detonator, and one other person Kobra didn’t know the name of, presumably the final Suiteheart. 

“What do you want, Leyline?” Sandman asked, the pretenses of rationality and good-natured banter from the previous meeting gone.  _ Good.  _ He leaned forward, crossing his arms and narrowing his gaze at her. 

Leyline simply smiled. With her hair pulled back into two buns, if she wasn’t so  _ harsh-looking,  _ she would look just like a few skaters Kobra knew. “What do  _ you  _ want, Sandy, dear?” 

“Don’t call me that. You’re stirring a pot you know you shouldn’t touch, so what gives?” 

Her gaze flickered to Kobra, a smirk tugging at the corner of pink-lined lips. “Well, it’s not my fault your doctor went crazy and the two that intervened were both superpowered. You’re all dangerous, you know. Could decide you don’t want the rest of us anymore.” 

“The fuck!” Detonator said, his plastic chair screeching behind him as he slammed his hands down on the table — “You know it doesn’t work like that! They saved people by making sure Benzedrine didn’t hurt anyone!”

“Because Benzedrine had the opportunity to hurt people due to his abilities. You recognize this, no?” 

“He’d be dangerous without his abilities as well, Leyline, you have to understand,” pleaded the final, unnamed Suiteheart, with short, buzzed green hair. It was a horrible look, so Kobra had to admire the courage they had. 

To Leyline, from what Kobra could see, she didn’t care  _ where  _ the fear came from. “We’re all dangerous regardless. I’m taking that danger  _ away  _ from you. There’s no damage you can cause if you don’t have any power in the first place.” 

Sandman sighed, heavy, pinching the bridge of his nose with a gloved hand. Why the fuck was he wearing gloves?  _ Leather  _ biker gloves, in a bakery’s backroom? “You don’t know the first thing about running a place like this. Benzedrine  _ does.  _ It’s his job. And we’ll fill in, and then we’ll get everything sorted out, and you can stop this coup before you begin it. We’re all on the same side here.” 

“You’re a  _ child,”  _ Leyline spat, leaning forward - both she and Sandman were inches away from each other, both snarling with a venom behind their eyes that Kobra had only seen in  _ Poison  _ when someone publicly challenged him. “You don’t know the first thing about revolution,  _ Sand Pup.  _ Leave it be, and let us take over. We know more than you ever had.” 

Sandman tensed, but didn’t respond to her blatant call to arms, blatant  _ c’mon, dog, bite.  _ Kobra wasn’t able to say he would do the same. “You need to stop. A superpower doesn’t make someone invincible or better than you, but morals fucking do you and you’re a few screws loose in the head, so—” 

“So is your precious doctor and I hear he’s getting the royal treatment.” 

“Shut up!” Detonator snapped; Kobra waited for the inevitable fight, for the boxing ring brawl that jumped out of the woodworks, but it never came. 

No, no, they were all at a standstill, with a pregnant silence heavy in the air. Leyline continued, breathing heavily through a clenched jaw. “Prove it. Prove that you’re not better than any of us.” 

“And how can we do that to your satisfaction, Leyline?” 

The final Suiteheart sighed, with heavy-lidded eyes; Kobra supposed you didn’t get much sleep when one of your (presumably) crewmates tried to attack his own Infirmary. 

With a cruel smile, Leyline sat back down, dusting off her dull-colored blouse. “Well, there’s a run that needs to be done. One that  _ Benzedrine  _ would usually see too, but as you know, he’s incapacitated. I vote the Suitehearts and the rest of, erm, what do they call you? The… Fabulous Killjoys, something horrendously egotistical like that, right? Nevertheless, I vote the Suitehearts and the Fabulous Killjoys oversee the run themselves.” 

“They aren’t even —” 

“Do you want me to drop this, or not?” Leyline said, harsh, snapping, daring  _ anyone  _ to defy her. 

Sandman was the only one who spoke, sitting down himself, though it was impossible to not catch the glimpses of anger flashing through his expression. “Fine. We’ll do it. And afterward, you can’t speak a word of your rhetoric, alright? We’re human too.” 

Underneath his breath, Kobra caught, “but I don’t know if you are…” 

No one else in the room seemed to hear it, and if they did, they didn’t say a damn thing - so neither did Kobra. None of leyline’s business was  _ his.  _

But it seemed it was turning into his business considering he was pretty damn sure he got volunteered for something he didn’t want to do - and volunteered his crew as well. What the fuck? 

With that, Leyline took her cue to leave, turning on her heel as she turned out of the room, with her skirt billowing out behind her. 

Kobra turned to Sandman with crossed arms and scowl on his face, trying his damnedest to not sound like a gossiping schoolgirl. “So, she a friend of yours?” 

Sandman scoffed, leaning back in the cheap plastic chair with a sigh. “Yeah, you could say that. Nah, she’s this hotshot from the Derby Queens, an’ she thinks she knows how everything goes.” 

“I know the type. What the fuck did I just get volunteered for?” What? He could skip past the whole tragic backstory he was about to get, he just wanted to know what he was being roped into and what the repercussions would be if he didn’t follow through, because he had a habit of being quite the disappointment. 

Detonator was the one who answered with a shake of his head. “A supply run. We’re all runnin’ low on medic supplies, and without Benzedrine here, there’s no one to tell the Angel Kissers what they’re doing.” 

“You’re gonna have to sop with the weird fancy-sounding names, dude.” 

“Angel Kisser and Derby Queens - two of the factions down here. Did you not know that?” Detonator asked, with the same tone he’d been using with Leyline. Kobra was getting the impression that he was not well-liked in this neck of the Underground. 

Still, he knew when to press his luck. “No. I’ve been here because my brother is in a  _ coma,  _ not to learn about culture if you didn’t notice. My crew didn't say yay or nay on this run thing, so I think we’re gonna stick with looking after ourselves.” 

“You can’t.” 

Kobras' gaze snapped to the unnamed Suiteheart, looking down at the ground with their hands in their lap. “Fuck do you mean I can’t? We don’t have any business in your bullshit, thank you very much!”

“Xe’s right,” Detonator sighed. “Phoenix has a point. You can’t choose out, not if you want your brother to actually get cared for. She wouldn’t do any of this if there was an option of you choosing out.” 

_ 

In the end, Kobra ended up getting the Underground explained to him as though he was a child. While he didn’t appreciate acting like he was four, it was nice to finally get everything explained. 

Apparently, factions were a thing, and it was  _ not  _ like a hotel so much as an apartment complex. There was somewhat of a ‘wing’ for guest rooms, but each residential level was for each faction, stuff like that. 

It was far too much to remember when Kobra knew he was going to be out of the Underground as quickly as he possibly could, but it might come in handy. 

By the time he was walking out of the meeting room, Sandman was hot on his heels, muttering an apology. 

“It’s fine,” Kobra shrugged, though it was not fine and he wasn’t looking forward to telling Ghoul more bad news to add onto, hey, so I know you already got controlled by a mad scientist, but… “Didn’t know what I expected.” 

“It’s like a YA novel royal court in there,” Sandman snorted, clearly making a play at conversation; when his laughter fizzled out and Kobra didn’t answer, it was clear that it was not working out like how he wanted it to. 

“Whatever. I know that I’m goin’ on a run and that’s all I need to know. I do that all the time.” 

They both knew it certainly wasn’t that simple, but it made Kobra feel better about himself and you know what, that was what counted. Sandman, however, seemed to think differently. “It’s a lot more… high-risk going into the city than going into the Zones, y’know? We usually have the Tumbleweeds do it, but…” 

“But now we have something to prove to Leyline.” 

“Not just to Leyline. To the entire Underground. Going on this run is like the equivalent of signing a contract in blood - I, Mr. Sandman, do not hold myself to any higher standards than non-powered individuals and am just as willing to risk my life as others.” 

Kobra’s nose scrunched up in distaste, a blatant disregard for what seemed to be customary. “Sounds like bullshit. I wouldn’t do it, if I were you, y’know. Just don’t go on the run. What’s the worst she could do if you didn’t?” 

“Take Benze’s leadership position and turn this place from a safe haven into something like a mutilated version of Bat City.” 

Even Kobra had to admit that did sound  _ bad.  _ But it’s not like… He’d never heard of the Underground before, it didn’t matter to anyone outside of them, right? 

Ugh. Even  _ thinking  _ it and he knew it wasn’t true. 

Because the Underground had Tumbleweeds, and Tumbleweeds went between the Underground, the City, and the Zones. Without the access tunnels the Tumbleweeds provided, they were all royally fucked in terms of food and water and other necessities. 

That didn’t sound fun, did it? Poison would be pissed if he woke up and suddenly the entire infra-structure of the desert had collapsed.  _ Fuck.  _

That meant they did have to go on the run. 

They would go on the run, but Kobra wasn’t going to be happy about it and he wasn’t going to try masking that simple fact. 

Besides, he had more than an inkling that Jet and Ghoul wouldn’t be too open to running with another crew; runs in the desert were always carefully planned extractions (or three a.m. runs to Tommy’s; depended on the week and how low they were on clean socks) with a refined gameplan. 

That meant you had to trust the people you were running with. And Kobra didn’t trust Sandman further than Poison could spit a glitter pen. Sandman was something new, an anomaly in their carefully curated crew. 

Well, as  _ curated  _ as a crew with Fun Ghoul in it could be. 

Sandman waved his hand in front of Kobra’s face, giving a lop-sided smile that most definitely was not genuine. “You there? Hello?” 

Kobra batted his hand away with a snarl. “Don’t do that again. Yeah, I heard you. We’ll go on the run. I’ll work it out.” 

Kobra didn’t  _ care  _ what Sandman thought of him, in retrospect, even if that was an ‘ _ incredibly moody teenage boy with a short temper’ _ , because that was accurate. Still, Sandman seemed startled. “Yeah, that, uh, that works. Sorry to put you in a bad position, that really wasn’t my intention.” 

“Intention or not, that’s what happened, isn’t it?” 

“Not my fault.” 

Before Sandman had the chance to respond, a device by his side crackled to life; it looked like a radio, but more… compact and small. Like a hand-held grenade but with an antenna. 

Regardless of Kobra being unable to figure out what the object was, Sandman held it up, and out came a distress call of some sort; it sounded like a radio, too. Interesting. 

“I - I gotta go. See you ‘round, Snake, you got a place you want to meet?” 

No, no Kobra did not. He barely managed to get to the bakery without getting lost, and even then he’d been fifteen minutes late. Still, he muttered something about Level 11, something about being there by the dead of night. 

He didn’t plan on going, of course, but it was clear Sandman didn’t know that from the content way he scurried up the catwalk, jumping from the catwalk to a rope and then swinging from the rope to about two platforms up. 

Yeah, Kobra was going to walk those instead, he decided. 

Kicking up sand at a hundred and ten miles per hour and graffiting Bat City’s walls, that Kobra could do; that he was used to. But risking falling to his death by jumping from platform to platform? Yeah, no thank you. He had enough problems already, thank you very much. 

He didn’t… What was he supposed to do in this type of situation? 

There was no way that he wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb in the city; he would have to dye his hair back to brown and find some regular clothes and… no, no, he wasn’t going to do that. Changing clothes was one thing; his hair was another.

It would be rude and insensitive to ask Ghoul to dye his hair, anyway, since he liked to wear the black dye as a symbol of honor to some dead woman, and Jet just liked their purple curls to stay, well, purple and curly. 

How was he supposed to tell them, hey, sorry, but if we want Poison to not die from lack of care, despite coming to the Underground for that purpose, we need to risk our lives in the City, even more so than if we just stayed in the Zones? 

So, that was exactly what he did. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3 in Art & Gasoline you got Fallacy Fame... in Burning Into Legend you get Leyline. I don't make the rules (yes I do).


	4. life burns from the touch of the reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As expected, 3/4s of the revolution's most famous go on a run into the City - and the Underground they come back to isn't the Underground they left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from life burns! by apocalyptica which you should TOTALLY listen to because it SLAPS and also. it's ??? it has no business being that good. ANYWAY uh. v action ! much intense !

Ghoul was certainly going to fucking kill someone. And if  _ someone  _ happened to be the motorbaby with a bad dye job, then so be it. 

Because there was no other reason he was wading through the muck in rain boots that were way too big for him, that went up to his  _ thighs,  _ (were they even called rain boots? Ghoul had no fucking clue), then because of Kobra. 

Jet knew how to keep their mouth shut, sure, but they were a  _ crew,  _ and Kobra going to some secret meeting with strange people in a new setting was something that seemed more appropriate for the entire crew to worry about, no? 

So, Ghoul was right there with a glare in his eyes when Kobra announced, with a sigh and a monotone, that they were going on a run with the Suitehearts. 

Despite needing to know who the Suitehearts were, Ghoul had already known that he was not going to enjoy the run, and he was right. 

Everyone had  _ failed  _ to mention they would be traveling through  _ active sewers.  _

In the Desert, you didn’t have to worry about that! 

“Out of your range, Snow Storm?” One of them, Detonator, maybe, the one with the cool curls and the dark skin and the killer outfit choice, said, giving Ghoul an upraised brow. 

Ghoul huffed, crossing his arms and trying to get his foot unstuck for the third time in the last four minutes. “Whatever. I don’t even wanna be here.” 

“Yeah, neither do I.” 

That was Phoenix; xe had stayed in the back, like Ghoul, as though xe was the one to stay behind like Ghoul did, looking out for the rest of the crew and all that. 

It was a lonely job, since it was the most overlooked, though Ghoul didn’t mention that. If his assumption was true, then Phoenix would understand. 

That did  _ not  _ mean Ghoul was okay with the current set-up, though!

“Well, you could’ve always, like, found some way around it.” He was bitching to the choir and he knew it, but with the grimy, dark concrete walls of the sewer encasing the group in darkness save for Jet’s flashlight, it gave him a semblance of security, of the  _ right  _ to be bitchy. 

Xe rolled xir eyes. “You’re not the only ghosty here, honey, you can knock that shit off. We don’t wanna be here, you don’t wanna be here, but it’s either be here or be stuck in some weird pseudo massacre.” 

It wasn’t that bad, or so Ghoul was told, though he already knew Phoenix was referring to what’s-her-name and people with powers. Destroya, that sounded so stupid, but there was literally no way around it other than to say ‘ _ superpowered people’  _ or  _ ‘people with superpowers’.  _ The constant redundant back and forth was tedious to say the least.

Then again, it was a wonder they had the time to be tedious when they were on a run into the very city that tried to murder them every couple of weeks.

It might be different, with the Suitehearts by them and Battery City unaware of their presence, but the Killjoys were known for making scenes, and a run into the City would be no different. 

A scene, a disaster, a  _ fight;  _ Ghoul knew how it worked, how it played out. 

The Suitehearts, it seemed, did not have that issue, considering nowhere in their plan did they plan for  _ nothing goes according to plan and you improvise half of it.  _

Yeah, it was going to go horribly wrong. 

Nevertheless, they ate up the darkness of the tunnel, wading through more and more muck from god knows what,  _ on and on and on.  _

The darkness didn’t  _ end.  _

No matter how long Ghoul walked, how long he listened to Kobra and Sandman bicker in the front of the group over trivial things just to keep the silence from looming, it  _ didn’t end.  _

It was like walking through the Fog Line past nightfall; when the fog was heavier, when the creatures from the wasteland peered through and flicked torn tongues through sharp teeth. Ghoul didn’t see any eyes peering out from the sewer pavement though.  _ Yet.  _

Eventually, even eternity had to come to an end; and eternity stopped dead in its tracks when Ghoul spotted a sliver of sunlight, at the same moment as everyone else - 

“Stay low,” Sandman muttered, loud enough for the rest of the group to hear, at the same moment Jet said, loud and clear, “Stay dirty.” 

They gave each other confused looks, unsure how to proceed. 

Ghoul preceded by cozying up next to Jet, brushing his hand up against his ray gun, as well as bumping hips with Jet; it was a before firefight ritual, and that’s all it needed to be. Ghoul trusted Jet a hell of a lot more than he trusted anyone else; Jet was steady. Jet wasn’t a wildcard. 

And if worse came to worst, then he could set everything ablaze and Kobra could get the crew out of there. 

With Sandman still staring at Jet in mock-confusion, Detonator sighed, sloshing in front of them with surprising speed considering the muck. “Fucking hell, you’re all tense pricks. We’re not bursting out right now, calm down, and stop staring, Sandy, it’s rude as fuck.” 

Sandman stuck his tongue out. Real professional. 

Detonator sighed, in that affectionate sort-of tone you reserved for your friends. “Calm it, Chordettes wanna be. Everyone know what they have to do? You all ready?” 

“Ready to stand in an alley for twenty minutes?” Phoenix said, deadpan, a smile pulling at the corners of xir’s mouth. “Yeah, certainly. Super hard.” 

Kobra tensed; he never was one for joking for a fight. That was usually because it was him who  _ instigated  _ the fights, though Ghoul was hoping he could refrain from trying to murder anyone until they got back to the Underground. 

Sandman swung onto the nearby ladder, leading to the top of the sewer and moving the cover; the sound made Ghoul wince. Whether it was because the sound was simply grating or because it was making too much noise, they would figure it out quick.

With Sandman having removed the grate, Kobra quickly followed, his lanky body scrambling up the ladder in record time. 

They were going to be the trouble-makers; Ghoul had a feeling the chaos was going to come naturally with the two of them around. 

As much as Ghoul disliked Kobra, disliked his anger and his blatant disregard of anyone other than himself and his brother, Kobra was still part of his crew. Therefore, if Kobra got himself killed because there was a Suiteheart covering his ass, then Ghoul would bring him back and beat the shit out of him and say  _ I told you so.  _

Both Jet and Phoenix had watches around their wrists; some weird tech thing that Phoenix said would synchronize their run, make sure everyone knew how much time they had left, and where everyone was. 

Ghoul wasn’t exactly open to the idea of some weird watch knowing exactly where he was and at what time, but when risking your life, he figured it might come in handy; he was the next one to crawl up the ladder, peering out at the harsh artificial light of the city reflecting off the buildings for signs of trouble. 

Absolutely nothing. And  _ absolutely nothing  _ sounded an awful lot like  _ absolutely trouble.  _

Detonator and Phoenix would come up after Jet, and they would stay in a separate alley to make sure everyone got back in one piece; how that was either effective or efficient, Ghoul had no clue, but they seemed to think it worked. 

And it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the fact that it was Jet and Ghoul risking their asses, right. 

The harsh lights of the city contrasted with the pavement, enough to make Ghoul squint from the brightness despite how it wasn’t  _ anywhere  _ near Desert-hot. Jet was by his side, looking out for actual people. 

Ghoul was more focused on figuring out where the fuck everyone was.

Because  _ he  _ and Jet were supposed to be about a block done from where they’d entered the City, or so he thought, but Kobra and Sandy were supposed to be… Somewhere. Fuck, Ghoul didn’t know and didn’t care at that point; he would know where they were when they blew shit up. 

Usually, Ghoul would like to see what happened to the bomb he spent so long on the building, but he would get to see the aftermath. They needed to  _ hurry. _

“You ready for a run?” said Ghoul, grinning at his own pun as Jet rolled their eyes and pointed out a building, discrete (as all BLI buildings were), but clearly a… a… Was that a fucking parts store? 

A parts store, like - like for droids? 

They were going  _ there?  _

Nevertheless, Ghoul trusted Jet’s direction far more than he trusted his own, so he wasn’t opposed to making his way into the alley next to Jet with the uncomfortable collar of the black shirt he’d worn in favor of his hideously iconic vest digging into his collarbones.  _ Fuck,  _ they were really going to do this, huh? 

For some fucker they’d never met who thought she was all that? 

All Sandman had said was that they needed medical supplies. He didn’t say what supplies, only that  _ the store will have it all, just throw it into a bag, don’t make noise.  _

Easy for him to say when he wasn’t the one on the run!

Nevertheless, Jet nodded toward Ghoul and Ghoul took his cue, glaring down the backdoor of the store and gaining a lop-sided smile as the palm of his hand began to feel  _ warm;  _ a pleasant kind of warm, the kind that you get on a nice day. 

And that? That meant the flame on the tip of his index finger was burning so hot it was hot; he jammed it onto the metal next to the electronic lock, short-circuiting it from the heat being too intense for it to  _ try  _ upholding, with the metal melting under his touch like a  _ clay.  _

Jet rolled their eyes, pulling out a thick rag from their back pocket to use as a heat protector to push the door open. “Show off much?” 

Since one of their  _ only  _ directions was to be quiet, Ghoul didn’t respond, looking aimlessly through what seemed to be boxes upon boxes of parts in storage. 

Wasn’t Sandman just  _ so  _ reliable? Destroya, he never learned, did he? 

When Ghoul looked over, Jet simply shrugged. From rows upon rows of  _ storage,  _ of random boxes neatly labeled, of the same gray  _ nothingness  _ Battery City was known for, there was nothing useful!

It was a fucking waste!

Ghoul huffed, crossing his arms with a snarl and aimlessly kicking one of the boxes on the bottom shelf. 

And the box on the bottom shelf did not clang like metal usually did like droid parts were supposed to; it was a medium-sized box, around the size of Ghoul’s calves, taller than it was wide, dirty white cardboard.

That was when it clicked, when Ghoul realized he was an  _ idiot,  _ and when the very ground shook beneath him.

_ Fuck.  _ Fuck, that meant Kobra and Sandman had Crows hot on their tails; Ghoul stopped thinking about whether he was doing anything useful and started picking up boxes, shaking one of the large cardboard boxes and dumping all the parts out after punching the top open, throwing smaller boxes. 

Jet did the same damn thing, just shaking and piling and shaking and it was almost fucking  _ comical  _ \- it would’ve been comical if the store alarm hadn’t gone off at that moment, a red-white light flashing throughout the shelves, above the door. 

_ WARNING,  _ said a voice; a recorded voice no doubt, but one that he knew by heart.  _ WARNING, YOU ARE DISOBEYING BETTER LIVING PROTOCOL. PLEASE REMAIN CALM WHILE YOU ARE INCAPACITATED. _

“You happen to know how to carry more shit?” Ghoul asked, picking the box up just to make sure he could carry it, the useless directive of, hey, don’t make that alarm go off completely fucking failed, no point now.

“Get taller and then you’ll see.”

He didn’t have the time to appreciate and hate Jet’s quip, because that explosion hadn’t quite rocked the Crows as much as it was supposed to and the shelf behind Ghoul hissed with the heat of a ray gun blast burned straight through it. 

_ Fuck. _

Ghoul’s been a quick runner all his life, but he wasn’t running. He couldn’t. 

Cursing, the box fell to the ground and consequently on Ghoul’s boot, but he didn’t fucking care as he pulled his ray gun out of its belt holster, aiming it at  _ nothing  _ because the Crows had realized the game they were playing. 

Yeah,  _ absolutely trouble  _ had been  _ absolutely right.  _

Jet followed suit, and soon the two of them were both one-handed firing off shots like it was a fucking game to hidden Crows that weren’t even popping out. 

Not advancing. 

Why weren’t they advancing? Jet and Ghoul had clearly labeled themselves threats, had clearly shown they were in possession of things they shouldn’t; fuck, Jet had fucking purple hair, it was clear they didn’t belong. 

So why weren’t the Crows doing anything about it? Did they have orders not to?  _ Why?  _

Well, the reason showed itself to be rather simple: because it was easier to pick them all off at once than it was to contain them in a corner and then  _ maybe  _ fire a shot when there was a clear way out. 

_ Crows. Crows. Level Three Crows?  _

There wasn’t any time to think about it as Ghoul hissed once again, Kobra’s elbow coming into contact with his ribs at the same time as Sandman shouted, “Fuck!”

“What a way to state the fuckin’ obvious!” Kobra shouted right back, a clear weird banter forming between the two of them, but Ghoul didn’t wait for another quip, not as a white blast nearly struck Kobra in the head. 

“Kobra, cover me, Jet, backdoor.” 

That was all Ghoul needed to say for Kobra’s grin to leave, a steady hand holding up a ray gun, a trained exxie against one of his former friends. 

Revenge was nice, but surviving was sweeter, and Ghoul kicked one of the boxes out of the door, to Jet, and  _ jesus fuck, could that fucking siren stop? It was too loud too loud too loud.  _

_ everything  _ was loud when you were in a firefight. Ghoul didn’t have any bombs. 

Ghoul didn’t have any leverage. Poison wasn’t here. He couldn’t make the siren stop.  _ Ghoul wanted the siren to stop.  _

“Ghoulie!”

Ghoul damn-near shot Sandman in the mouth, biting his lip so hard it  _ bled;  _ focus focus focus, you piece of shit, focus! Boxes, get the boxes! His hands were shaking when they gripped the underside of the box off the cold white tile floor, but he threw it out the door anyway, rather than pushing, it didn’t matter, more boxes. 

Knocking over another box of droid parts, spilling the contents over the floor with an ear-piercing shriek, Ghoul started tossing more med boxes, more more  _ more, god fucking dammit, get moving.  _

The firefight around him was the least of Ghoul’s concern. The boxes were his job and if he didn’t get his job done then it would his fault and if it was his fault then - 

_ Focus.  _ Why was it so fucking hard? It shouldn’t be so fucking hard!

“Ghoul, come on.” 

It was Jet. It was Jet, staring in from the doorway, bright purple curls and a worried, albeit sympathetic smile, calm regardless of the situation. “Ghoul, Ghoulie, c’mon. It’s okay. Tune them out. Just get the boxes. You’re doin’ well, just keep goin’.” 

Ghoul nodded, standing as cluelessly as a fucking rat in a cage, nodding stupidly. 

But he followed instructions. Maybe it was the calm lilt to Jet’s voice or the familiar smile, or the way Jet always knew how to make him focus in, but Ghoul grit his teeth and closed his eyes shut, for a second, for five, for a millisecond, he didn’t know. 

But when he opened his eyes, there  _ wasn’t  _ a firefight going on. It was just him and the med- boxes and a ticking timer that said,  _ how many can we carry, how many, get to that number.  _

He’d never been the best at math, since it was useless in and of itself, so he didn’t really give a shit about the number. 

_ Dump the box. Slide other boxes in. Push the box.  _ Repeat. Repeat repeat  _ repeat.  _

Repeat until someone was shoving your shoulder out of the way of blaster fire. Get back up off the floor with bubbling nerves in your throat about to explode. 

Go back to what you’re doing. Go back to pushing the box out the door with shaking hands so bad you can’t focus on anything else. 

Go back to dumping another box of droid parts. Ignore the burn marks in the shape of a handprint warping the cardboard’s shape.  _ Keep going. Keep running.  _

Keep running? Ghoul could do that. He’d been doing that for years.  _ Keep running.  _

Keep running until someone was shouting in his ear, causing a painful ringing to ricochet through Ghoul’s head with a wince. 

“It’s time to go, we gotta go, c’mon!” said Kobra, wide-eyes and a ray gun clutched tight in his hand and Ghoul could already smell the stench of dead bodies littering the floor on the other side of the shop and it didn’t  _ matter  _ how Kobra’s only talent was death and  _ they had to go.  _

“Ghoul, dammit!” 

Ghoul was trying, couldn’t he see that he was trying, c’mon, he was trying he was trying  _ he was trying  _ but all he was doing was staring at the fucking ray gun in Kobra’s hands like he was in a white jumpsuit with a killer smile and a bad sense of humor and  _ and and.  _

Kobra’s hand was on Ghoul’s shoulder, shaking him, but he pulled it back just as quick - “You’re burning! Fucking - Ghoul! Come on!”

He was trying. 

_ He was trying.  _

**_HE WAS TRYING._ **

Ghoul was still biting his lip, when did he start that? Biting his lip and it was bleeding and he didn’t care and he wasn’t supposed to be getting boxes anymore and he wasn’t but he was just standing there, standing there, confused, what was he supposed to do? 

Kobra grabbed his arm, hissing, hissing, and it was  _ cold,  _ why was it cold, where were they going? Why was Kobra glitching? Ghoul didn’t want to glitch he didn’t want to  _ he didn’t want to.  _ It was  _ cold  _ and  _ bad  _ and Ghoul was - Ghoul was the opposite!

Cold meant so hot that you didn’t realize you were burning!

But it meant that he wasn’t hot enough to burn anything, and there was strain in Kobra’s voice when he spoke, like he was trying his damnedest to stay right where he was, and they’d never  _ stayed  _ in the weird cold  _ bad  _ place Kobra went to when he glitched, and it was all so very  _ wrong.  _

“Ghoul, Ghoul, you’re burnin’ up, Raven, you need to calm down.” 

Ghoul just…  _ stared.  _ He didn’t know what else to do. He  _ was  _ calm. He didn’t know  _ why  _ he just couldn’t - why he just couldn’t  _ focus.  _ And if he did then he focused too  _ much  _ and where the fuck was he, where was his head, it wasn’t  _ right  _ and he hated the piling dread in his stomach like a brick. 

“We’re gonna go back to, erm, to the sewer, and we’re gonna get all the med supplies back to the Underground, and - and you can, like, go visit the Mailbox, or something, or  _ something,  _ stop looking at me like that!”

The Mailbox was all the way out in Zone Two. It wasn’t in the Underground. It was in the Zones. It was  _ home.  _

Dryly, Ghoul swallowed, a lump in the back of his throat caused by more than just soreness. Time to go. 

Time to go  _ home.  _ Soon, at least. Was that enough? 

Nevertheless, Kobra exhaled, his breath visible but before Ghoul could catch a glimpse of the world around them it was all melting away again, always melting, always some fleeting other world only Kobra could access.

By the time Ghoul blinked, they were back in the real world; not in the shop, but by the others, and Kobra was panting, trickles of sweat plastering his hair to his forehead, leaning forward against the brick wall to catch his breath. 

“You guys ready to go?” Detonator asked, barely paying Kobra’s exhaustion mind as Sandman rushed to his side, murmuring soft something or others. 

Something had changed there, it seemed, but Ghoul wasn’t going to ask about it, and Ghoul didn’t know if he had the mental capacity to do anything other than what he was doing at that exact moment. 

And that was picking up a box. Since the boxes were large, he could only carry one without toppling over himself, and the sense of urgency of  _ incoming Crow patrols  _ wasn’t on his mind. Just pick up a box and get back to the Underground. Simple enough, right? 

_ 

It would’ve been far simpler if, say, they weren’t going back to a hurricane of  _ bad.  _

Not that that was something inhabiting, not at first, but after sloshing through a mile or two’s worth of sewer sludge with boxes upon boxes of medical supplies, you expected at least some praise. 

All they were greeted with was a wholly empty Infirmary, and  _ silence.  _

The white noise of the Underground was bad enough on its own, a constant droning that wasn’t natural, a  _ listen to me listen to me listen listen listen  _ that drove Ghoul up the walls, made him want to tear his own ears off, but a place like the Underground wasn’t meant to be silent. 

The silence  _ echoed,  _ much like a voice would, a silent ringing in his ears; he couldn’t tell if it was from his hearing aids or if it was truly just  _ there,  _ something new, something constant. 

All he could hear was Kobra’s heavy breathing because apparently he hadn’t managed to catch his breath in the hour they’d been walking for. Ironic, wasn’t it? 

He could’ve just glitched everyone there, saved everyone the walk and the mess and the exhaustion. 

“So… Where is everyone?” Phoenix asked, uncomfortable, awkward in his own home because, as it seemed to Ghoul, the Infirmary was Benzedrine’s home before any of theirs. 

It seemed the mad doctor had made an impression. 

Sandman shrugged, just as uncomfortable, the leather of his obnoxious jacket protesting against the movement. “Dunno. Did something happen?” 

In an act of defiance against the silence, the clicking of heels followed Sandman’s statement, accompanied by a woman in red with a harsh face and harsher eyes. Worse than Ghoul’s, honestly. “Something happened, of course.” 

Sandman snarled, stepping in front of the group as though he qualified as a leader. All he was was a runaway and a coward, but it wasn't the time for that conversation and Ghoul wasn’t going to bring it up. “What did you do, Leyline?” 

“It wasn’t me,” the woman said, a canine-like grin on red-painted lips, smug and confident. Ghoul had  _ more  _ than a feeling that was the same girl who forced them all to go on that disaster run. “It was your dear Benzedrine!”

“We both know that’s a lie. What  _ happened?”  _

“More like what  _ didn’t.  _ As it seems, coddling your insane doctor didn’t work out too well. Escaped from the pseudo-cell you put him in thinking it was just some weird phase.  _ Trashed  _ the Infirmary.” 

There was not a single piece of paper or object out of place. But Leyline didn’t point that out, with crossed arms and such smug security underneath her eyes it was almost impossible to see the way she flinched when Sandman snapped at her, a cloud of black dust falling like snow from his clenched fists by his sides. “What the  _ fuck  _ did you do?” 

“Moved him to a more secure location. Moved all your precious little injured patients down to a safer location, where we can thoroughly check if they’re threats or not, considering what happened  _ last  _ time.” She looked pointedly at Ghoul and Kobra, like they had done anything  _ bad,  _ like they hadn’t been the ones to stop Benzedrine from wrecking the Infirmary in the first place; their only casualties had been a few broken windows. 

So… Oh. 

_ Oh.  _ Speaking of broken windows, Benzedrine wasn’t the only one to have done that in the last week or so. 

_ Poison  _ had, too, when he was having that electrical seizure when his powers had acted up. But Kobra had stopped that!

Detonator spoke up, hesitant, with a far more laid back manner than Sandman, who looked like he was about to kill everyone there and then smash  _ more  _ windows. “You mean assess whether they have powers or not.” 

“You would be correct.” 

“We did your stupid run,” Kobra hissed, leaned against Phoenix now that Sandman had taken front-stage, and only then did Ghoul notice the red pooled around his stomach, the way he was resting his entire weight onto one leg and on Phoenix. “You said you wouldn’t bring it up again!”

She shrugged, innocently. “It took you longer than expected. Without any fill-in leaders,  _ someone  _ had to call the shots.” 

“We’re back now! Where the fuck did you put them?!”  _ Fuck, Sandman, don’t make it worse, don’t make it worse.  _

“Doesn’t matter. to  _ you,  _ anyway. But as you wish, you can have your precious control back. For now.” 

“And where is everyone else?” Phoenix asked, seemingly not bothered by Kobra’s presence nor Jet standing back and petting Kobra’s hair, assessing the situation in much the same way Ghoul was. 

Leyline smiled, cruel, something hidden behind her pearly white teeth. “They’re all in their rooms. We decided that it was best for everyone to hide for the moment, so Benzedrine didn’t hurt anyone else. Good decision, no?”

“Get out of my sight!”

Tsking, with a shake of her head, Leyline turned on her obnoxiously loud heels, to whichever level of Hell she came from. Probably somewhere snowy, since she was so pale white it was as though she was a real bitchy ghost. 

That brought up some new problems, but Ghoul didn’t point them out, not yet, dropping the box he’d been carrying for far too long onto the ground in front of him with a sigh; his back appreciated it, at least. 

Sandman shook his head, cursing out whoever. “Hold on, I’ll… I’ll get everything sorted, let me go make an announcement.” 

“You want me to figure out what actually happened?” asked Detonator, setting his box on the counter. 

“And I can work on finding all the patients,” Phoenix said, nodding xir head, and just like that, there was a plan in motion.

As much as Ghoul loathed to admit it, the Suitehearts worked well as a team, even with one of their crewmates completely incapacitated. For that, Ghoul was jealous. 

All he, Kobra, and Jet could agree on was that they didn’t want to be in the Underground, and that they hadn’t wanted to go on that run. 

And they didn’t even know where Poison was anymore! Destroya be fucking damned, nothing could ever go right, could it? It was all just some fucked up joke! What the fuck did he do to deserve all of this? 

He couldn’t even fucking go to the Mailbox, not with Poison missing, with his life in  _ danger  _ because that was a shitty move no matter how you swung it and Ghoul would strangle that woman to death with his bare hands if he had the opportunity. 

As the Suitehearts dispersed, each disappearing off into their respective task with little more than light banter as the weight of the world weighed down on their shoulders, Ghoul just stood there, and maybe his anger showed. Maybe the anchor on his heart finally broke through the cage. 

Maybe maybe  _ maybe.  _

Maybe they could find Poison. Maybe they could go home. Maybe Poison would wake up. 

That was far too many fucking maybes for Ghoul to deal with! He just wanted to go home and drop off a letter and go to bed in his own bed with no pillows, back-to-back with Poison because that’s how they  _ always  _ slept, underneath some ratty old blankets while Jet snored like a jet engine and Kobra did whatever the fuck Kobra did. 

Why was that too much to ask?  _ One thing,  _ he just wanted  _ one thing.  _ To go home. He wanted to go home!

“Hey, Ghoulie, you good?” Jet asked, a sympathetic smile painted on their face, their tone so much  _ better  _ than when Sandman said the nickname; Jet was a nest of blankets on a cold day, or a cup of hot cocoa, and for that, Ghoul was grateful. 

“No,” Ghoul mumbled, sighing, dropping his gaze down to his feet. Kobra had disappeared, somewhere, and Destroya, Ghoul didn’t even care that he’d been pretty sure Kobra was bleeding. He didn’t  _ care  _ about any of this anymore. “I jus’ wanna go home. S’not our business.” 

“We gotta wait for Poison,” said Jet, soft, pulling Ghoul into a hug. They never minded that he didn’t hug back all the time. 

“Find. We gotta find ‘im and… I don’t wanna. I just want to go home. With him. And sleep. For days, or years, or however long, I just want to go  _ home. _ ” They both knew it wasn’t home without Poison; home was your crew, your family. 

And, for Ghoul, home was a firecracker of a ginger-imitation, a bleach blond with a shitty sense of humor, a purple-haired jet-setter, and a rickety old Diner out in the middle of nowhere. 

The Underground was not his home. The Underground would never be his home and he was okay with that, but only if he finally got to go home!

“We’re gonna… and we’ll go home, make Tommy’s life hell again, yeah?” Jet was gentle; always would be, with Ghoul, because he was a bomb in the making, but even those needed care, right? Even an inferno in a box needed that. “We’ll find Pois, and we’ll buy some of those weird sticks of chocolate that he likes and we’ll all get glared at till we wash our hands, and  _ then  _ we’ll go home, blasting the radio as loud as it can go, drivin’ the Am so quickly it kicks up dust two miles back.” 

“Sounds like you got a Getaway Mile dream, Jetty,” Ghoul murmured, though he couldn’t deny that he was leaning into Jet’s touch, leaning into the way they were playing with his hair ‘cos they knew it calmed him down. That it  _ grounded  _ him.

Jet hummed. “Maybe it is. Like you said, this isn’t our bullshit. We just need Poison to wake up. He’ll find his way back to us; he always does.” 

That much was true. Ghoul had known Poison and Kobra for about a year, and from two screaming matches, one run-away, and one electrocution, they had always managed to find their way back to Jet and Ghoul; like they were all meant to be a crew together, meant to be just like their name implied;  _ Fabulous.  _

They just hadn’t figured out how they fit together just yet. Because Poison always found his way back to them and he always would. Destroya be damned, Ghoul hoped so. 

_ Something  _ needed to go right. 

“You wanna go lay down? Kobes brought Poison’s blanket down, it might help you sleep a little better.” 

And, of course, nodding stiffly, moving on auto-pilot as Jet gently pushed him in the direction he was supposed to walk, on the catwalks that vaguely terrified him, Ghoul had to ask the question. “Will you stay with me?” 

Poison never  _ stayed  _ when Ghoul was having a breakdown and needed to be cuddled. It was an embarrassing thing to admit, but Ghoul always wished that Poison would stay. 

Maybe thinking about Poison made the entire situation seem so much less impending and real. Maybe thinking about Poison made Ghoul feel less like he was about to lose one of his best friends. 

At the end of the day, Poison was just as human as the rest of them, but… But there was something about Poison that made him seem so much more… more legendary. Something that made Ghoul believe that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Poison  _ wouldn’t  _ make it out. 

But Poison was busy being unconscious in an unknown location until further notice, and… and he did have powers, and… and what if they… 

“Ghoulie! Ghoulie, calm down, it’s okay, he’s gonna be fine, and  _ you’re  _ going to take a nap, okay?” 

Huh. When had they gotten to their room? Already? Fuck, he knew he was being redirected like a fucking child; he knew that Jet was treating him like that because it was the only thing he would respond to, and he didn’t have the energy to feel bad. 

Yeah, he was going to take a nap, Jet was right. 

_ 

Unfortunately, Ghoul couldn’t catch a break, even in sleep. Regardless of how quickly he fell asleep, of the exhaustion seeped through his bones, his mind couldn’t rest. 

It was a flurry of disaster, of course, and Ghoul had never been a light sleeper; surprise surprise when he shifted, groaning and rolling his eyes… 

And the world was tilted four degrees to the left. The light filtering through the windows… Windows? Why the fuck were there windows? He was in the Underground. 

He was in the Underground… So why was he back in his bed? Next to Poison, not Jet? It just didn’t make sense. Unless… “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” 

“It’s been a long time since you have,” hummed a voice, and there was nothing to it that could be described as anything other than that:  _ a voice.  _ It was not young nor old, not masculine nor feminine, not high-pitched or low-pitched.

It simply  _ was.  _

“For good reason,” Ghoul muttered, bitterness tinging his voice like he’d sucked on a lemon. The dreamworld shook, as though it was a sturdy little bubble being beaten with a teenager’s baseball bat.

Ironically, that very much could be the case. 

The voice hummed once again; it sounded of a murder of crows. “There is no good reason to avoid your fate. It all comes ‘round circle anyway, Inferno.” 

“What did you want to tell me, anyway? I need a fucking nap, not your shit.” 

The Phoenix Witch, a mischievous deity if anything, laughed, appearing in front of Ghoul’s view, in the corners of his eyes; he could feel her gaze weighing heavily on his shoulders, making every inch of his skin itch, the way her crow-like claws scratched her robe by her sides. “So impatient in the ways of time, aren’t you?” 

“Unlike deities, I don’t have the time to sleep for twenty years.” 

“I’m not even a twenty-year- _old_ __ deity.” 

“And yet you’re still an asshole.” 

If it was possible, the Witch might’ve rolled her eyes behind her mask, but Ghoul couldn’t see behind her mask and didn’t think he wanted to. “Keep your mouth closed, Inferno.” 

Before Ghoul could respond, he realized he  _ couldn’t  _ respond; because his mouth just… wasn’t there.  _ Fucking A, Witch.  _

She could hear his thoughts, so it’s not like it managed to shut him up too well. Regardless, the scenery changed from a watery four-degrees- _ wrong  _ version of the Diner to a bright hellscape; the Desert, but… 

But the horizon was burning, burning, and it wasn’t just the sinking sun. 

When Ghoul craned his neck to look around, to look for anything else, for the Witch, he found nothing other than barren sand - looking back toward the horizon, there was no horizon at all.

There were imposing, concrete walls, standing seventy feet tall, with electrical spikes jumping from high rise buildings, from building to buildings to buildings with a  _ scream  _ echoing in Ghoul’s ears, louder louder  _ louder.  _

A little girl’s scream. 

What the fuck? What the fuck was going on? Why was the horizon burning and why were the buildings - what did Poison  _ do?  _

Ghoul grit his teeth, knowing knowing  _ knowing  _ clutching his ears wouldn’t make the scream go away but going it again, because it hurt it hurt  _ it hurt  _ and he didn’t want to hear it he didn’t want to be here he just wanted to take a nap why was that so… 

The world went dark. 

The  _ dream world _ went dark, at least, not like the vision fading or peeling or melting away, but simply gone, like shutting off an old TV and being consumed in the static, pinpricks of  _ not right not right not right  _ hitting his skin like needles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u enjoyed !! :** thoughts ?? ?


	5. and in the aching night under satellites, i was not received

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jet isn't quite sure what to make of the kid they meet while trying to eat some waffles. 
> 
> There's another kid who might just be a cherry-haired revolution's last hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now, now, THIS is the chapter you've all been waiting for.

While Ghoul was sound asleep, clutched tight to Poison’s old blanket, Jet sighed, booping Ghoul’s nose with a soft sigh and wiggling out of bed. Ghoul had one of those big noses with an undefined nose bridge; perfect for booping. 

They knew they said they’d stay, but Ghoul’s exhaustion was only one problem in a long list of things to deal with, and Jet didn’t have the time for it. Maybe that sounded rude, but one of their best friends was missing, Kobra was bleeding out and being a bitch about it, and the Suitehearts were far less of a coordinated unit than Ghoul believed. 

That was what Ghoul  _ always  _ did. Jet would die for him in a heartbeat, but he always assumed everyone else had their shit together when that just wasn’t true. 

So, it was up to Jet to figure out what the fuck they were doing. 

The Suitehearts were a wreck, misguided and misdirected without their leader, and with Leylinew trying to seize control in the most covertly obvious way possible, that wasn’t going to work out all too well. They had to  _ seem  _ like they knew more than her. 

And, for that, they needed to know more than her. It was a grueling catch 22. 

First, Jet was going to go buy those ridiculously tasty homemade waffles they’d gotten the other day, because searching for someone with an empty stomach was risky business; and then they were going to venture down to the Lower Levels. 

The Lower Levels housed some of the  _ only  _ places you could hide twenty-plus injured persons without threat of discovery. 

And yet, guilty as they felt, the waffles came first. They couldn’t do  _ anything  _ if they were running themself ragged without food, or water, or sleep. 

_ Food  _ was the most pressing of those concerns, and so waffles it was, as they maneuvered through the catwalks and the platforms like a Juvee Hall with five years of experience under their belt. 

They supposed they were, but they weren’t Ghoul; Ghoul was a Snow Storm born and raised with nothing more than motor oil pumping through his veins, in need of the attention and the smoke to put his past on display with the scar on his mouth. 

Jet, on the other hand, found it helped to bury it all, and  _ burn  _ it. Until it was nothing more than a memory, but their muscle memory would remember, would  _ always  _ remember the way the cold metal of the Underground felt underneath their bare feet, young and scared and  _ clueless.  _

They  _ weren’t  _ letting that same thing happen to anyone else. And to do that, to make sure that no one  _ needed  _ to do that, they needed to find those patients, and they needed to  _ rescue  _ them before their words could be twisted against them by Leyline. 

Jet hadn’t had to worry about public opinion and the intrigues of politics for a while. It was safe to say, they didn’t miss it. When people like Leyline took control, nothing good was in store for anyone who  _ dared  _ disagree with her. 

“Are you Jet Star?” 

Jet stopped, humming, glancing down and finding himself making eye contact with a relatively short kid - a few inches under Ghoul, probably around fifteen or sixteen, with a blue streak in their hair. The kid didn’t seem too threatening, nor indued with any hero worship, so Jet gave a soft smile in return. “Depends on who’s askin’, kiddo.” 

“Don’t call me kiddo.” 

“Okay, kid.” 

The kid sighed. “Name’s Northern Downpour. He/him. I heard you came back, that you’re with the jackass with the purple eyes.” 

They tried to hide their wince, but they didn’t know how well it worked out; kids tended to react better, especially older ones, when they were talking to someone they could read, someone expressive. That was a  _ flattering  _ way to describe Kobra, they supposed. “Yeah, that’s the Kobra Kid, though you could be a little nicer. You speak like you know me.” 

“I, uh…” Downpour trailed off, brown eyes glazed over until they snapped back into focus. “I used to know you. When I was little. My mama did, but that’s not what we’re talking about.” 

Well, that was  _ unexpected.  _ Jet couldn’t recall any mothers they’d met in recent, nor distant, years. “Then what are we talking about? I’m trying to get some waffles, if you don’t mind.” 

Downpour awkwardly shuffled next to Jet, rather than in front of them, though it was obvious to them both that he had no idea how to hold himself - whether he should slouch like he wanted or stand tall or act formal-but-casual. He respected them, then. “Could I come with you? This is important.” 

“Is it about my crew?” 

“Um… I think? It concerns your crew, of course, but also a lot of other people, and…” 

Ah, so Downpour was involved in the politics of the Underground; he must’ve been in that meeting Kobra went to, the one that got them roped into all of this. A child of the Underground didn’t  _ belong  _ in those spaces. 

It was too  _ bitter  _ for them. Jet was only a few years older, but it didn’t  _ feel  _ like that sometimes; twenty-one, and still, they acted just like they did when they were a teenager. Time wasn’t real in the Zones, anyway. 

Nevertheless, Jet nodded, giving Downpour all of the loose attention they could; the catwalk was shaking underneath them, but not enough to be worrying. It was just another loose piece of metal, after all. “Then fire away, kid. Waffles for two?” 

“It might not take that much time,” Downpour mumbled, though when the catwalk narrowed, he went from standing next to Jet to walking in front of them, though backward, unaware of the painful death that would befall him if he fell. “But I would like that. Waffles from Miss Ray Day are good.” 

“Some of the best I’ve had,” said Jet, keeping up light conversation while they walked; the kid seemed too nervous to broach the subject he intended to, and Jet wanted to make him as comfortable as possible. 

And, if they could manage it, figure out how deep they were in the Underground’s politics, and give him some choice advice:  _ get the hell out of there while you can.  _

With more pointless filter between them, Jet slowly guided Downpour down to the Miss Ray Day’s waffle house, on the eleventh level; four levels down from the infirmary and the current point of interest.

Kobra was up there, in the infirmary. Some nurses - and the one that had been a dick to Ghoul - were treating his ray gun shot. Last Jet had checked, it wasn’t anything bad, but it  _ was  _ going to get worse if Kobra kept acting like an idiot and irritating it. 

Unfortunately, it was the ray gun wound from the firefight that landed Poison in a coma: he managed to get  _ another  _ graze right there, and it inflamed the pre-existing wound, but the pre-existing wound was healed enough that there was far more blood than needed. 

That being said, Kobra needed to start watching his fucking left, because if Jet had Poison’s right and Ghoul’s back, then Kobra needed to have their back, so they could have his left. The  _ Fabulous Killjoys  _ would be a better machine if they could  _ communicate.  _

“Are you… good?” 

Oh. Downpour was holding the door open for them, though Jet had been glancing up toward the Infirmary, where Kobra was no doubt pacing and ignoring instructions to sit down and let his wound heal. 

Jet shook their head, humming; they always hummed when they were trying to focus, an old habit born out of fear, if anything. Nevertheless, they sat down on one of the plastic, soft mats that lined the floor like puzzle pieces. 

They served as both seating and table, and honestly, it was rather nice to sit on the floor rather than in an uncomfortable wooden chair, that would no doubt start to hurt their back. In that scenario, though, their back would hurt regardless. 

Ah, the joys of being older than ten. Constant back pain.  _ Boo.  _

“Y’know...” Jet started, glancing up at the painted rock ceiling of the waffle house. “You’re fifteen, right?” 

“... Yeah. How did you -” 

“Cherish what you got, kid.” 

Downpour was quiet, waiting for Jet to continue, but they never did. They didn’t  _ need  _ to. 

Loss was another part of life, a coming-of-age for people like them. The Zones didn’t care for your  _ age  _ \- you were a rebel the moment you lost something in the collateral of the century-old war waged between monochrome and color. 

And so, Downpour mumbled, seeing that Jet wasn’t going to add on. “I’ll try. You want to know what I needed to tell you, or are we going to have an old people existential crisis?” 

“I’m not  _ old!”  _

“I’m gonna start calling you old man if you keep calling me kid.” 

Jet rolled their eyes. “It would be old  _ ‘joy,  _ thank you very much. Anyway, yes. You came to me for a reason, and you seem to believe it’s important.” 

“The patients,” said Downpour, a small grin painting his face in a brighter light against the shock of blue in his hair. “I know where they are. And I know that you used to live here, and… and I assume you don’t want Leyline to hurt them.” 

Oh. Jet knew what he was referring to now; so, they leaned forward, glancing around to make sure that no one was around. 

That was the thing about Miss Ray Day’s. You left your carbons on the floor, and you wouldn’t see anyone pick them up, but they’d be replaced by waffles soon enough. Nevertheless, there was no one around. 

“You know what she’s planning, don’t you, kid?” Jet asked, trying to make eye contact, but Downpour was glancing at the colored mats on the ground instead. “You know what she’s going to try with them.” 

“It’ll never work,” Downpour blurted. “It won’t work. You can’t test everyone here for a meta-gene by telling them they’re sick. The only way you can find everyone is if you set-up a control system and they’ll never agree to that. Especially the kids.” 

He said it like he would  _ know.  _ And with the way  _ family  _ worked in the Underground, Jet wasn’t going to ask if he did. It was a sensitive topic. “I agree. But you don’t know how much  _ sway  _ someone can have when they paint a different story.” 

With a sigh, Downpour glanced up at the ceiling once again, and yet - Jet startled, the skin on the back of their neck rising in mock alert of something, only to find two plates of waffles next to them, with two measuring cups filled with syrup. 

They couldn’t even  _ smell  _ the waffles until they were there. That’s just how it was at Miss Ray Day’s. 

Sliding over Downpour’s plate, the kid set it in his lap gently, like he was afraid it might break if he touched it with anything more than a feather-light grasp. “I suppose. I’ve seen it happen before, but she’s…” 

“Not the most friendly?” 

“I was going to say bitchy, but that too.” 

A grin stretched across Jet’s face, but it didn’t reach their eyes, much like the way Downpour had a perpetual sad look on his face; his cheeks pulled too thin, bones jutting out just a little too much, calloused hands used to gripping the side of catwalks when you didn’t  _ quite  _ make the jump. “How far into all this are you, kiddo?” 

“I don’t know.” That made Jet’s grin fall. “I just - I don’t know. I’m important, I know I am, but I don’t know  _ why.  _ Leyline doesn’t rely on  _ anyone  _ that she didn’t personally mold and I’m - I’m -” 

“The Underground’s ward. I know how it works.” 

“Yeah. That. So, I don’t know why she’s keeping me around, why I get to know things.” 

_ Collateral,  _ Jet wanted to hiss,  _ you’re collateral.  _ But they weren’t going to say that to a child who was already unsure of his place; it was true, and he thought he was old enough to know the truth. He wasn’t. “And you still came to me. Why? If she  _ is  _ keeping you around for no other reason than shit’s and giggles, then why come to me?” 

“I…” 

“Don’t know,” Jet finished, sighing. Figured. Nevertheless, they should be glad they weren’t grasping at straw for any leads, and that they have one sitting right in front of them, confused and eating waffles tentatively, like he wasn’t sure if he could really have them. 

Once that goddamn doctor wasn’t trying to control anyone, Jet would have a talk with him about how the Underground was working. 

They’d always had an orphan problem, but it only got worse rather than better, and Jet could only feed so many bone-thin children with waffles and sorrow in their eyes, confused about their place in the world. The Underground needed to  _ do  _ something. 

The fucked-up thing was that no one  _ cared  _ about the children. They ran around on catwalks too small for any adult to walk on and played games where they jumped from one to the other and it didn’t  _ matter  _ because half their parents were Swingers and they never learned to stay away from the edge. 

And  _ no one cared.  _ There were so many spare fucking rooms and yet -  _ the spare rooms.  _

The spare rooms!

“Downpour,” Jet started, a sparkle in their eye, something that meant they had an  _ idea.  _ “Downpour, you said you know where the patients are, right?” 

“Uh, a general idea, yeah -” 

“Where?” 

“The, um, the ground level, but -”

_ Yes.  _ That was what Jet needed! “The ground level was built back when people thought they were going to live there, right? So there will be more residential down there, right? And a mock Infirmary?” 

“The original infirmary,” Downpour said, staring down at the nearly-empty plate in his lap, syrup untouched. “They, um, they use it as a morgue now. For the Swingers. But - but yeah. You don’t… you don’t think Leyline would put them there, right?” 

“That’s the difference,” Jet muttered, bending their fork with how much pressure they were putting onto the plate, their knuckles burning with how tightly their fist was clutched. “You, me - we think of them as  _ human.  _ She doesn’t care. She doesn’t  _ care  _ if they’re hurt or not, because if they have the - er, what did you call it? Meta-gene? - then they  _ deserve  _ to die.” 

_

Everything was  _ stiff;  _ like his limbs were locked into place and everything  _ burned,  _ his heart  _ burned  _ like he’d been electrocuted. 

Wait. 

Poison’s eyes snapped open, met only with a pitch-black ceiling; slowly, it lightened, like he was adjusting to the world as it was rather than the dream world he’d been in. He couldn’t remember dreaming. Had he been dreaming? 

He groaned, finding that his throat burned, too, dry, a cracking voice and a painful shudder following suit. Everything  _ hurt.  _ Destroya, if this happened every time, he needed to stop getting into firefights. 

Screw the revolution, his limbs hurt and - 

And why couldn’t he move them? 

Poison glanced around, glanced and found nothing he was familiar with and there was a goddamn  _ hospital gown  _ over his jacket and and  _ and - _

Everything hurt, everything burned when he strained his muscles too long but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t move and when he tried there was this  _ rattling,  _ this rattling like - like he was cuffed to the hospital cot, hospital cot because he had a gown on and everything and  _ he was in a hospital.  _

There wasn’t a lick of color save for his jacket, and Poison pretended he didn’t want to cry, but there were no tears to be found - simply a horrible, grating smell. Maybe it was just dehydration. Destroya, he hoped it was just dehydration. 

“Kobra?” Poison called out, licking chapped lips, though it didn’t help and - and the door was closed and it was  _ dark  _ and he couldn’t move and  _ where was his brother, where was his brother, where was his family?  _

No answer. No answer, no answer and his voice echoed and everything burned when he strained and still, he strained because he didn’t know where he was and there was dust over everything and he was  _ fucking restrained  _ in a hospital bed and - and 

There was a spark, a blue spark, fuck, fuck, there couldn’t be any sparks, no  _ panic,  _ but where was he? Was he… Where was… 

Why couldn’t he hear anything? He could hear his own breathing, and - and he could  _ see  _ other people, but they were… 

Oh, Witch, Poison swallowed his bile. There were people, sure, but they weren’t  _ breathing  _ because there was dust covering the sheets and they were  _ covered by sheets.  _

That was the smell.  _ Death.  _

_ He was in a morgue.  _

Choking on his sudden fear, Poison thrashed, his sore muscles momentarily forgotten as he struggled, struggled, struggled, and the sparks were in the corners of his eyes again and he didn’t even  _ care  _ because maybe they could get - 

Ow! Fuck, Poison hissed, sucking in a sharp breath and glancing down at his restraints, trying to keep from seeing red - or blue - around the edges. Straps around his ankles, knees, waist, wrists, and torso. 

The one on his torso, though, right above his heart, had a circular little device on it, sparking the same blue that came out of his fingertips when he panicked like this and it was  _ sucking up  _ his electricity and - 

There was no way he was getting out of this. 

Poison swallowed, throat dry as sandpaper, searching for a way out. He was essentially immobilized in every sense of the word, and he was in a  _ morgue  _ and the world smelt of death and decay and he was supposed to be  _ life  _ and  _ revolution  _ and - 

He could scream!

He could scream; if there was anyone nearby, they would come check it out, hopefully, confused by the screaming from the morgue. And if they were good guys, good for him, he was home free. If they weren’t, he still got to know who and what he was dealing with, and he could go from there. 

One step at a time, right? Same concept as a firefight, only slower - one thing at a time. Blast, dodge, duck, blast, etc. 

Firefight. Firefight. The last thing Poison remembered before he passed out was watching Kobra get hit in a firefight - the details were blurry, the sun catching most of his eye before he could pick apart the scene, blood covering his jacket and hands and -  _ Kobra got hit.  _

Alright. Alright. Maybe Poison had ample reason to scream. 

He was in a morgue, strapped down, couldn’t use his powers, and the last thing he remembered was his brother getting  _ shot.  _ That wasn’t concerning at all, right? 

Right? 

So, when Poison screamed, it was cracked and broken and much like he  _ felt  _ at the time, keeping from thrashing only because it wouldn’t do him any good. And the more he thrashed the more the electricity hummed in his veins, responding to his panic, and the little thing on his restraints was  _ taking  _ his power when he used it. 

Scream. Just scream. Just scream until your voice goes raw. 

That was saying something, considering his throat was  _ already  _ raw and hoarse and screaming  _ hurt  _ and he  _ had to  _ and he had to get out of here, he had to know, he had to know if Kobra was okay and if this was all a fever dream and if everything was going to get better and how long he’d been asleep and he had to get away from the bodies, from the bodies under the sheets that loomed up at him with blank faces,  _ ghosted,  _ corpses still among the living for no other reason than to haunt him. 

His voice came to a screeching heart, as far as it would go without any water, without care and regular use, and Poison pretended he wasn’t  _ exhausted. _ Thrashing in panic and screaming took a lot of effort when you’d just woken up from getting  _ shot  _ and his hair was in his eyes and it itched but at the very least, it was still red. 

If it was still red, and he was still wearing his jacket, that meant he was at least in a ‘joy morgue, and not some BLI facility. Not much better, not right then, but it would mean a quicker escape if he managed not to die out in the sun without any  _ water.  _

Destroya, what was taking his captures so long to come and check out the screaming? You would think they would wonder why the fuck there was screaming in a morgue. 

Then again, Poison thought, settling into an icy calm, his panic shoved underneath the mask in the same way his shirt was under his jacket, he wouldn’t want to know why anyone was screaming in a morgue, either. 

_ Party Poison was not going to die in a morgue.  _ He hadn’t died when he was supposed to and he wasn’t going to now. He wasn’t going to die and not even know the face of his killers. That was a death reserved for only those with the worst offenses, and he’d done bad things before, but nothing that warranted  _ this.  _

Talking to himself wasn’t an option; his voice hurt too much for that and, despite his attempts to get someone to pay attention to him failing miserably, he didn’t know whether anyone was listening in. Or if they had any cameras, and if they had cameras, he was royally fucked. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d been kidnapped, or held in a strange pseudo-scientific area with the smell of decay sharp on his tongue, but it was the first time they’d ever been able to  _ hold  _ him for more than an hour or so. 

Poison wasn’t getting out of this by himself. There needed to be an outside source, someone; whether a passing soul who checked on him out of curiosity, or the cavalry, but there needed to be  _ something.  _

He couldn’t make something out of nothing. 

And that being said, it would be easier to stew in his thoughts, figure out a plan and get the hang of where he was; he was Kobra’s big brother, so he should have picked up  _ some  _ of those observational skills that Kobra preached so often. 

It was difficult to  _ observe  _ anything when you were restrained to a hospital bed and everything ached from waking up, and the lingering stench of corpses littered the air like a goddamn expired Febreeze or something. 

Nevertheless, Poison sighed, taking a deep breath and ignoring the way it burned in his throat, like the air itself was tainted, like he was another body in the morgue, but his ghost was still roaming as though he was alive. 

You know, comforting thoughts like that. 

If he was a ghost, he was a particularly lousy one, still bound to his body, but being alive was dangerous on it’s own and Party Poison was the type of killjoy that could never stay away from  _ dangerous.  _

And he wanted to  _ live  _ back in the Zones with his blaster and his crew and electricity sparking under his touch like a tidal wave. The  _ morgue  _ couldn’t keep him down. 

He just needed that  _ outside source  _ to make itself known and then he would be able to find a way to  _ escape.  _

For now, he just… had to wait. 

_ 

Poison would be lying if he said he hadn’t dozed off in the time he was waiting, though only because he’d been waiting a  _ long  _ time, and nothing had happened other than something from the ceiling falling. 

A tile, most likely, kicking up a cloud of dust and spreading around the stench more than it already was. 

He didn’t know how long he’d been out. His eyes took a while to adjust to the dark, so  _ something  _ must’ve changed, but he didn’t know what; a secluded bunker wouldn’t abide by the light of day and night, and he couldn’t see any windows, and yet still, the lighting had changed. Earlier it was dim, but now there was almost no light to be found. 

Ah, the times where he wanted to turn into a bat and fly away from it all, back to his little Diner in Zone Four with his dumbass crew, but no; here he was, strapped to a cot in a room full of dead people, and maybe he was just joking because otherwise he was going to lose his mind. 

And then there was  _ laughter.  _

It wasn’t his laughter, no, because he wasn’t that close to losing himself yet, but it was  _ laughter,  _ echoing throughout the morgue, throughout the entire little structure he was enclosed in. 

Poison couldn’t see past two hospital beds over, and the one on the other side of the wall. He couldn’t see  _ anything  _ and he couldn’t crane his neck to the left, and that was probably because he’d thrashed so much and got a cramp, and he didn’t know but there was  _ laughter,  _ creepy and echoing and - 

And an outside source. 

Still, his grin was short-lived as the laughter kicked back up again, childish and high-pitched, drifting out from the shadows, using them as a wall of mirrors to reflect their voice. 

Responding was only natural, after all, though Poison’s voice hadn’t improved at all since he’d woken up for a second time. “Who - who the fuck is laughin’?” 

The laughter stopped abruptly, the echo fading out as quickly as it came. Why the hell did the laughter stop? 

Was he not supposed to be awake? Fuck, but he needed to see whoever it was, even if he did get knocked out again - at the very least, he would’ve had a look at them, thrashing in protest or not, but if they didn’t come back, and - 

“You’re - you’re alive?” 

Oh. That wasn’t what Poison was expecting. Regardless, he swallowed, glancing around, but the once-over revealed nothing more than the expanse he was already staring at; a dingy morgue with decaying bodies and one live Killjoy with restraints and a power inhibitor on his chest. 

_ C’mon, Poison, here’s your chance. Make good with that mouth of yours and speak, dumbass.  _ “Yeah. I’m alive. Alive an’ - an’ kickin’.” 

No answer, not for a long time, and Poison began to think that the voice had left, traveled off to inform some higher-ups or whatever that he’d woken up, that he wasn’t dead, that he didn’t belong in the morgue, at least not yet. 

And then he heard a footstep, though he couldn’t pinpoint the location; he must’ve taken a hit to his head in that firefight because he couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, even though the footstep didn’t echo, meaning it was close,  _ they  _ were close. 

“You’re… I didn’t… No one but the dead are supposed to be down here. How are you - how are you down here?” 

“Woke up here.” Destroya, his throat  _ hurt.  _ Maybe he should explain,  _ I was in a firefight and I woke up here,  _ but Poison couldn’t, not without irritating his throat and he didn’t need to get himself into more trouble than he was already in. 

He needed to get out of here so he could find his crew, make sure they all - make sure  _ Kobra -  _ was okay. Kobra needed to be okay but Poison could only know that if he was out of the morgue, if he was wherever Kobra was. 

When Poison strained, he could hear another footstep, and then what was probably a shoe hitting a cabinet, like the person was scaling the countertop. Morgues had countertops, right? Poison  _ loathed  _ being in the damn dark! “Why are you here if you aren’t dead? Are you - are you a  _ zombie?  _ Oh my Kerosene, you’re a zombie!”

“Not a zombie,” said Poison, trying to grit his teeth and finding that doing so was extremely painful - his jaw was sensitive, it seemed. His jaw and his heart, but he didn’t know if that was because of the device on his chest or not. 

Hopefully, it was the device on his chest and nothing else. Because if he was injured too badly, then he was  _ fucked  _ when it came to escaping. He didn’t… recall getting injured in that firefight, but it was like he was there one minute, and gone the next. 

Like he’d blacked out, but he didn’t remember getting hit. 

“Then  _ why are you here?”  _

“I don’t know.” That much was true, though Poison didn’t know if he should be crafting any tales yet, any D&D games turned lies. Sometimes, turning their old D&D games into stories had gotten him out of a number of sticky situations. “Help. Help me.” 

He wouldn’t say please. He  _ wouldn’t.  _

But if he were in the person’s position, he wouldn’t help himself. He’d assume it was a trick. Shoot first, ask questions later. Too many horror movies at WKIL. Not enough empathy. 

_ Witch, please. Help me. Help me help me helpmehelpme _ **_helpme._ **

“I… I… Okay.” 

Huh. One of the first times any of Poison’s prayers had been answered, though he quickly learned why when the figure appeared in his line of sight, blurry around the edges, but certainly no larger than the average seven-year-old. 

Did Poison know any seven-year-olds?

“Who are you?” They asked tentatively, hesitant, waiting for Poison to bite; still, they stepped closer, ratty clothes clinging to their skeletal frame like a lifeline. 

Poison tried his best for a smile. His bottom lip split from the effort, so he quickly stopped before blood started dribbling down his chin. “Party Poison. He/him. Nice to - to meet ya, kid.” 

“Valen,” the kid whispered, glancing around like he assumed Poison was going to bludgeon him with a non-existent weapon. “Er - he and him too, please. What’s… what’s that thing on your chest?” 

Kids were always honest, right? 

“It - it makes my powers go ‘way,” said Poison, trying for a shrug and finding only uncomfortable restraints, which he’d momentarily forgotten about in trying to figure out what the kid - Valen - looked like. 

Not a good thing to forget. No wonder he got knocked the fuck out in that firefight; he couldn’t pay attention for  _ shit.  _ Fuck, he needed to work on that. But Valen didn’t need to know that. 

“You have powers?” Valen sure talked a lot, didn’t he? 

Before Poison could explain, Valen started messing with the straps, the  _ restraints  _ keeping him bound to the morgue’s cold embrace; he didn’t seem  _ intimidated,  _ which was odd. 

Most children, most  _ killjoys,  _ tended to find his presence intimidating. Then again, in the dark, strapped to a hospital bed, he must’ve looked like nothing more than a washed-out ghost haunting his life. 

“How old are you, Va - Valen?” Talking hurt. His tongue felt  _ wrong  _ in his mouth and his throat was the remains of a battle between sandpaper and a cheese grater. But he hated the silence, the way nothing  _ moved  _ in the dark, now that he’d had a taste of  _ life  _ once again. 

Valen hummed, a croaking sound that turned into a humph of triumph once the first strap, around his waist, was undone. “Eleven!”

“Why you still got - got, er. Valen?” 

As poorly as it was phrased, it seemed to get the message across, considering Valen’s shoulders slouched as he started to remove the next strap down - leaving the chest strap for later, then. “Haven’t been initiated yet. I - I keep stuttering when I get up there, so I’m not ready, and… Yeah. Still Valen.” 

“But… don’t you just get to  _ cho - choose  _ your name when you turn ten?” 

Valen side-eyed him, the strangest look a child could possibly give. “No. You wait till you’re Initiated. Where are you from, the desert?” 

“Yes.” 

If Valen’s eyes could get wider than saucers, they did. “You’re - you’re really from the Zones, dude? How did you… they don’t really…” 

“Where am I?” Where could he  _ be?  _ He’d already established he wasn’t in the City, because it wasn’t orderly like Bat City liked it, and he couldn’t be in the slums, because of the lighting, but he couldn’t… The kid said…  _ Where the fuck was he?  _

Another strap came loose. Valen used that as his excuse to keep from looking at Poison, starting to fiddle with the next one, the one that would set Poison’s wrist free; at least one of them. “I, um, you’re on the ground level. Of the Underground. You’re, um, I don’t… You’re in the morgue. I thought you were a Swinger.” 

“The fu - ‘s a Swinger?” Stop cursing around the kid. Poison was certain he’d gone through enough, with the way that he was talking. Like a teenager, not an eleven-year-old without a name who didn’t know what he was doing. 

Valen’s grip tightened on the strap, turning his knuckles white with pressure. A sensitive topic, then. “When - when someone falls from one of the catwalks, or they jump, or they’re - or they’re pushed, they fall all the way down here. We call them Swingers.” 

Suddenly, Poison wanted to get out of here more than ever, worms crawling underneath his skin as he thought about what the bodies under the sheets must look like, mutilated and broken with bones sticking one, with flesh pushed to the side from impact. 

No wonder it was hard to talk about. They were in a  _ morgue,  _ surrounded by mutilated bodies, and - “Why are you here, Valen?” 

It was the steadiest thing Poison had said all night, and by Destroya he was happy that it came out without any croaking, and a sense of victory as another strap popped loose to reveal his wrist, pressure lines from the restraint making little doubt about what had happened. 

Valen swallowed, fiddling with the next one, Poison’s other wrist, his grip getting tighter and tighter. Poison was prying. Valen was only eleven, and it seemed he already had the killjoy tradition of getting  _ angry  _ and not answering things. “‘Cos I can be. I don’t see why not.” 

“The smell, really.” 

“Not bad when you - when you get used to it.” 

“I won’t ask again. Thank you for helping me.” That did raise the question, though, of exactly  _ why  _ Valen was helping him; mind Poison for being suspicious, but he was in the morgue in a strange place that he  _ still  _ didn’t know the name of, and a sneaking child was the one helping him escape. It wasn’t likely. 

It wasn’t  _ right.  _ There was something else going on. 

But he’d already said he wasn’t going to ask, and… Well, his word could be bent when circumstance needed it, and Poison gave an appreciative smile as his other wrist popped free, leaving his chest strap and ankle strap. “What’s going on around here, kiddo?”

Valen shrugged, noticeably less  _ frustrated  _ now that Poison wasn’t asking about his life. “I don’t know. Something something, fraud, something something, fuck the desert-kids, something something murder and hiding, blah blah blah. I don’t get into it all too often.” 

“Tha - that’s because you’re eleven.” 

“Or because I don’t want to know.” The other wrist strap came undone. 

Poison flexed his fingers, lifting his forearms, making sure that he still knew  _ how,  _ and sure enough, his fingers responded to his childish impulse. It hurt, it  _ ached,  _ but he’d been asleep for Destroya knew how long, so that was to be expected.

He wasn’t going to be at his best for  _ a while,  _ but he’d do what he could for now. He hoped that included walking, because walking was necessary for things like escaping the morgue he’d been imprisoned in, and… The hell? 

Glancing down, shaking his legs, the pins on his jeans jingling happily, he still had his blaster. Why the fuck would you ever kidnap anyone and not steal their  _ blaster?  _ It was counter-productive, really, just begging for them to escape. 

Then again, if he’d been asleep for… for a long time, then there would be no reason to take it, because there would be no guarantee that he woke up; let alone was able to escape his bonds. 

Maybe it was a good thing that Valen struggled with the top strap, the one with the little device on it that stole his electricity, because Poison was beginning to get the big picture, to see the light beyond the decaying, broken bodies in the morgue. 

_ He was supposed to be one of them.  _

Suppose you have a comatose guy who’s been asleep for a while. Suppose you don’t have the supplies you need to take care of him. No one would assume he would wake up, so it was easier to put him with the already-dead bodies, wait until his body gave up on him or he didn’t get the care he needed, or or  _ or.  _

It didn’t matter. He was with the rest of the bodies because he was meant to be one of them, because he was  _ bound  _ to be one of them if Valen hadn’t saved him. 

Speaking of saving, Valen had unstrapped the one around his chest, and the hard plastic sat loosely on Poison’s chest; the circular device built into it glowed faintly when it detached from his chest, almost  _ sparking  _ like his electricity did. 

From there, Poison clumsily slipped his feet out from the ankle restraints, before Valen could try to unstrap them - he stumbled, catching himself with the side of the cot before he could fall over, sitting upright. Fuck, moving was hard, how long had he been out? 

“Do you need help?” Valen  _ squeaked  _ out, and Poison would have laughed if his throat didn’t feel as much like hell. “You, uh…” 

“I what?” 

“You look… unsteady, let’s say.” 

Poison scowled; his face was one of the few parts of his body that didn’t feel completely detached; like he was getting used to walking again. Like he was a toddler, learning how to use his body again. It was stupid. He didn’t have the  _ time  _ for this. “I’m - I’m good. Do you know how to get out of here?” 

Valen nodded, glancing around at the cots, looking for something, something, and Poison decided he didn’t want to know. 

He didn’t want to know until it was relevant and it was something he could shoot at, as was his favorite pastime of getting rid of all his pent-up energy; not that he had any at the moment, because he was far too  _ sore  _ to be antsy, but the point still stood. 

“There’s, um, there’s the regular way out and there’s the way I came in.” 

“Which is less dangerous?” 

Valen didn’t answer the question directly. Poison decided he didn’t like this place, but he could moan and groan about it later, when he had the luxury of being in a safe space with his crew, playing cards or fake poker with worm-on-strings or something dumb like that. “The way I came in has less people.” 

“Less people it is.” 

Or, well,  _ would  _ be, if Poison didn’t stumble as he tried to stand up, his leg completely  _ failing  _ him, refusing to hold his weight, refusing to let him get back on his feet so soon. 

Without a word, Valen helped him stand up, his small body practically fitting underneath Poison’s arm, but… Leaning into the kid, Poison had to say it was easier to try and coordinate his limbs, like they would listen to him or something crazy like that. 

He was a goddamn puppet without its strings, and it wasn’t a good look. He  _ hated  _ being helpless, but he prayed to every deity he knew of that, if it came down to it, his fingers wouldn’t fail him if they got into another firefight. 

He didn’t need a kid getting into the crossfire, especially not a kid he owed his life to. General gratitude involved not getting your helper murdered, after all. 

“You gotta, um, you gotta climb onto the counter,” Valen muttered, clearly hesitating to say anything, though they were (slowly) approaching the counter-top Poison had wondered about earlier. 

“Let me guess,” Poison asked, raspy, “The  _ more people  _ route had less climbing?” 

“Well, it has jumps.” Like that was any better. 

Regardless, Valen scampered up the counter-top like he’d been doing it his whole life, without ever talking his hands off Poison or letting Poison fall, though he was starting to get his bearings. 

It would take a while, to gain full control over himself again, to be able to walk without feeling like a stranger in his bones, someone who didn’t know how to take care of himself and was now made out of glass, but it would get better, bit by bit, and he would  _ make  _ the process speed up if he needed it to. 

Like right now, when he shakily took Valen’s hand, half-smiling at the way the kid huffed and puffed and helped him onto the counter. 

The way he was trying to crouch, but he was leaning completely against the dirty counter and his legs were cramping up. 

And then he realized the climbing wasn’t  _ over. _

Valen grinned at him, before swinging up to the  _ top  _ of the cabinets, though Poison didn’t know if they would hold anything more than Valen’s weight - and then grasping the edge of an opened vent as he jumped off the cabinet, swinging into the damn thing. 

Yeah, Poison wouldn’t be able to do that like that on his best day, and this is far from it. 

That being said, though, when he squinted through the darkness and the dust Valen kicked up, he thought he wouldn’t  _ need  _ to do any of the leaping stuff. He was taller than Valen, by a good foot or two, and he should be able to  _ grasp  _ the vent while he was standing on the cabinet. 

There were two problems with his plan: one, he didn’t know how he was going to climb onto the cabinet without falling, or if the cabinet would even hold. Two, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to hold himself up long enough to pull himself into the vent, and he doubted Valen could help him out, with how frail and small the kid was. 

He was agile and swift, but not built for strength, especially in confined spaces. In fact, the kid seemed to be lacking a few good meals, so that probably didn’t help. 

“C’mon,” Valen whisper-shouted, excitement laced through his tone like there was nothing better to do than sit in that vent and watch Poison contemplate the most painful way to climb a cabinet. 

“I’m trying,” Poison whisper-shouted back, the words burning in his throat, an acid dripping down the more he hissed, the more he used the back of his mouth. 

Valen let out an indignant huff, though he didn’t say anything else and Poison, slowly, hiding his wince, lifted himself up, still crouching. The cabinets were separated due to what used to be a sink but was now just an empty counter, different colored than the rest of the set, and he needed to climb onto the one closest to the vent. 

Easy, right? 

Not so much when he fell against the cabinet. 

Poison grit his teeth, though his jaw, still, didn’t agree with him, to keep from crying out, to keep from alerting anyone to his escape and… and to make sure Valen didn’t see him as anything other than strong. 

Call it a bad habit, and an old one at that. Bad habits die hard, huh? 

Well, not when he wouldn’t die. 

Regardless, Poison pushed off the cabinet, though leaned against it with an arm to keep his foot. There, there, he was fine, he was mostly standing by himself on shaking legs. Better than tripping on his face, right? 

It was… a process, trying to get onto the cabinet, but he supposed it was a warm-up to the vent, which would, in his  _ frail  _ (he hated that word, loathed it almost as much as BLI) state, would probably kill him. 

Great. Death was on the table, and Death was kinda pissed at him - see, the whole refusing to die thing, and all that. 

It took a few tries to get his legs to figure out how to  _ jump,  _ how to get his arms to  _ stay in front of him and pull,  _ and even more so, enough  _ strength  _ in shaking arms to pull him onto the cabinet. 

After that, you would think it was child’s play. If it was, Poison pitied that child, because he damn near collapsed on the top of the cabinet as he tried to turn around, crawling in a mess of his own body because it wasn’t  _ moving  _ like he was used to. 

His mind was fully awake, but his body was groggily waking up on a Sunday morning, all leisure and lazy and shit. 

“Do you need help?” Valen asked again, sniffing, looking down at Poison with both curiosity and concern in his weirdly large brown eyes. Children were odd creatures. 

Little tricksters, but also little angels, and Poison supposed everyone had a side of heaven or hell to them - but he wasn’t thinking about that right now and he didn’t plan on thinking about it for a while. 

First, escape. Then, find Kobra and the crew. 

Oh, Destroya, maybe that was the push Poison needed as he stood on unsteady legs once again, using the ceiling to keep his balance - if he didn’t get out of here, then he couldn’t see Kobra and the rest of the crew. 

If he died in the morgue like he was supposed to, then he wasn’t going to see them again. Wasn’t going to see  _ Ghoul  _ again. 

And, oh, oh, he wasn’t going to leave things off the way he had, not with any of them. They deserved to go down as a goddamn family and he wasn’t going to die without them in the mismatched little crew they had, where half of them were estranged and the other half didn’t know what they were doing. 

(Spoiler alert: Jet and Poison didn’t know what they were doing, and Kobra and Ghoul were estranged from each other. it was… an interesting dynamic, but it was theirs regardless.) 

That being said, Poison held his breath, standing straight up and… trusting himself, praying, praying once again as he fell forward with his eyes blown wide that he wasn’t going to miss and nail his jaw into the cabinet opposite to him, when it was so likely his body couldn’t hold him up. 

_ Thud.  _

For a moment, a moment or even less than, Poison was confused. 

And then he realized his arm had caught in the vent and he blindly scrambled to get the rest of his body in the vent, too, his boots scrambling for purchase on the wall, the cabinet, anything they could reach until he was mostly pushed into the small ventilation shaft, that had worse lighting than the morgue. 

The smell of death wasn’t as bad up here, at least. It smelled like, er… Lavender, actually. 

Lavender certainly wasn’t the type of thing you smelt in a vent, but he didn’t ask, and Valen didn’t answer. Instead, the kid was already moving, quick and agile and somehow  _ silent,  _ while Poison’s knees bit into the metal of the vent, groaning every time he tried to move, to crawl after the kid. 

If he moved slowly enough, then he could stay quiet without risking collapse or anything like that. Or, you know, breaking the vent, which seemed like a painful - and dangerous - thing to do. 

Oh, Witch. If only the desert could see him now. The renowned Party Poison, leader of the revolution, hot-shot who could take out three Dracs before you could even insult him; proud of himself for  _ climbing into a vent,  _ more clumsy and with less coordination than a child. 

If only they’d seen him wake up in the morgue, too. They would’ve rioted. Or he hoped they would have. 

Up ahead, it seemed like Valen, too, realized that Poison wasn’t keeping up, waiting, looking over his shoulder. “Do you need a minute?” 

“No.” If Poison stopped moving, he wouldn’t  _ start  _ again. It was tiring, okay? He was  _ tired.  _ He was in a  _ coma.  _ “Keep - keep goin’. Until we’re safe.” 

Valen snorted, but he didn’t say anything further and Poison didn’t know if he could  _ ask.  _

There was so much he needed to do once he got out of these vents. He didn’t know where Valen was leading him, and he found that didn’t particularly care so long as he was able to  _ get out of here.  _

He needed to figure out where he was, where his crew was, get to them, figure out if everyone was okay or if he needed to cause a sandstorm in his wake; he needed to get his bearings back and make himself function like he was used to, and the more he thought about it, the more he needed to figure out what that  _ thing  _ taking his powers was. 

Look, an inhibitor collar was one thing. Poison had never worn one, and didn’t plan to. But the idea of something out there existing that can take his powers just by  _ touching  _ him? He didn’t like that. 

Unfortunately, he’d never understood tech stuff, so he would have to ask Ghoul about it, when he found him. Ghoul knew about that kind of stuff. 

Destroya, he hoped none of them thought he was… y’know,  _ ghosted.  _ Something must’ve happened, he knew it, because they would never leave him in a morgue, they wouldn’t do that to him. 

There were quite a few ‘joys in the Desert that would, but his crew? No. No way.  _ Something  _ must’ve happened. They wouldn’t leave him there. 

But the more he sat and thought about it, crawling through silent vents, the more the paranoia crept up on him, and Poison could  _ not  _ afford to have a breakdown right now. No, he needed to act the part of a revolution leader, an unshakable killjoy who knew exactly what he was going to take from BLI, what hell he was going to raise.

Not some… scared twenty-year-old with more insecurity than he was willing to admit to. Just keep going until you’re out of the crossfire. Just keep going until you’re safe again. 

Keep running. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3 thoughts ?


	6. i'm down, so low, i got nothing to lose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Kobra Kid has one coping mechanism, and maybe it builds as many bridges as it burns, out in the Zones with guilt heavy in his stomach and sun on his face. 
> 
> Jet Star has enough to worry about. They're about to put their detective skills to the test, and it's going to burn more than just their desperation.

“I’m never,  _ never  _ going anywhere with you again,” Kobra hissed, his palm covering his side protectively, like Sandman was going to try and poke it. 

Honestly, Kobra didn’t put it past him. He and Sandman got along on shaky ground, playing the blame-game of who’s actually at fault and who’s being an overdramatic bastard. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do that when Kobra was out of commission with an injury, for the second time in two-and-a-half weeks. 

It was times like these where he understood Jet’s constant need to tell him to  _ stop getting hurt.  _ He knew he was being bitchy, unreasonable, even. 

But given the circumstances, Kobra supposed it was justified, sitting in the dark infirmary with a single, purple lamp on, and the Suiteheart with a quick tongue and a quicker ability to piss Kobra off. 

The perfect bickering partner. But not tonight. “Yeah, I’m sure you won’t. We gotta - we gotta figure out where they  _ are,  _ we have to make sure Leyline doesn’t, y’know, and we gotta -” 

“Slow the fuck down, why don’t you?” Kobra knew better than anyone that trying to delegate tasks in a methodical panic helped no one other than your enemy. It was something he was taught, learned over childhood. 

Sandman flipped him off with what might’ve been a snarl if he wasn’t so busy not- listening. “I can’t. Can’t slow down, can’t take a moment, because you’ve  _ seen  _ Leyline, you  _ saw  _ what she did when we were gone. We can’t let her take the Underground.” 

“Why don’t you just kill her?” 

If one could fashion a glare and alight it with the Phoenix Witch’s rage, then that’s what Sandman did, glaring Kobra down; he wanted to squirm, but he had too much pride for that, and squirming would hurt his ribs more than they already were. “I would. But I can’t. Because that would complete her narrative, that people with the meta-gene are monsters, that we all deserve to rot in hell.” 

“Sounds like bullshit,” Kobra hummed, quirking a brow. Facial expressions were far easier than physical movements, though he could make them if he wanted to.  _ Bedrest,  _ the nurses had told him, but he was only going to listen so long as it benefitted him. “You’re just getting rid of the trash. Besides, she  _ kidnapped my brother,  _ or do you not remember?” 

“You won’t let me forget.” That much was true. Leyline had done more than try to blackmail the Suitehearts; she’d taken Poison when she took the patients in the Infirmary. 

Kobra  _ wanted  _ to be angry about it, craved the rage running through his veins like most craved coffee, but he  _ couldn’t,  _ not when he was injured, not when he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. 

His anger would be his destruction, and he knew it. He had to sideline it until he was well enough to train, to hit the same object over and over and over again and bloody his knuckles against something, something, anything. 

As it was, he was stuck in the Infirmary with Sandman pacing in front of him, the constant scuff of his boots hitting the floor acting as a theme song, of sorts. Still, when Kobra didn’t answer, Sandman continued. “I just, I don’t know what to do. Usually,Benze does all of this. He would know what risks to take and which ones to leave. Everyone says he’s crazy, but he’s not, really-” 

“I distinctly remember him throwing me into a wall.” 

“- That wasn’t his fault. At least, I don’t think. There’s always a method to his madness and I don’t - I don’t know what that  _ is  _ and I don’t know what I’m supposed to  _ do  _ and we’re supposed to find the patients and I don’t - I can’t -” 

“Calm the fuck down, would you?” It was an easy demand to make when he was the one confined to the hospital bed, who didn’t get the luxury of pacing and panicking like that. He wanted to. He wanted to be  _ angry,  _ and… 

And yeah. He didn’t know beyond that. 

It didn’t help that he didn’t know what Jet was up to; they’d gone looking for Poison with some half-assed note about a  _ hunch  _ or something or other and Kobra hadn’t seen them since, and he couldn’t do anything about it, and Ghoul was a dick, truce or not, and it was all so much to worry about that he couldn’t worry about any of it. 

Funny how that worked, huh? 

Sandman sighed, running a hand through his wavy black hair. It was like it  _ reflected  _ the purple light, goddamn. It reminded Kobra of the way he used to see comic books shaded, the way they would color Batman’s cape when it overlapped. “Yeah. I guess that’s a good idea. I can’t run this place. I really can’t.” 

“Then why are you trying?” 

“Because no one else will. No one knows where to start.” 

“Where did Benzedrine start?” 

Kobra lived with a hot-shot of a revolutionist, who brought the desert to  _ life  _ with every word he spoke, some living legend, so he knew a thing or two about leading a lie that you knew nothing about. 

The Underground must be something like that; a place larger-than-life that no one person could manage on their own, but the saying said it best:  _ fake it till you make it.  _

If Sandman was giving him an odd look, the shadows hide his face from view. Whether that was on purpose or not, the shadows dripped down from his hair to his hoodie, hiding his face. Damn shadow-spinner. “I don’t… He just kinda… I guess he asked around.” 

“And you haven’t, right.” Kobra’s tone is as dry as he can manage, sitting upright in the hospital bed and gritting his teeth when he coughs, when his hand instantly tightens around his ribs instinctually. 

Destroya. He’d rather be in that goddamn coma with Poison than get  _ shot in the ribs  _ again, because it was becoming a bad habit, and one he was rather eager to break.

Sandman scoffed once again, though he stopped his pacing, staring at Kobra curiously. “Aren’t you worried?” 

“Yeah. But you can’t be worried when you’re on bedrest, or all you do is stress yourself out and get sick. I got a nasty fever from it, once.” To be fair, he’d also been ignoring orders at the time, and as a top student, they hadn’t been able to give him Black Out without admin getting pissed off. 

Kobra didn’t like to think about that all too often, so he turned his attention to the ceiling, rocks sprawled with purple graffiti; he wondered how they got up there. He hadn’t  _ seen  _ any ladders since he’d come to the underground, except on the one platform whose above catwalk broke. 

A reassuring sight, certainly.

With a sigh, Sandman went back to running his hand through his hair, finding more tangles than Kobra thought possible; Sandman didn’t seem like the type to take care of himself in a stressful situation, and this could’ve been classified as a grade A disaster. “I’m not on bed rest, though. Maybe I should ask around. And then I should be able to figure it out, like Benze.” 

“Why don’t you just ask him?” 

“Because I - I don’t… want to. I don’t know if I can. Seeing him all caged up is…” 

“Horrifying.” Supposedly, you wouldn’t want to see one of the most important people in your life in a cage, after having tried to burn down the life you had. 

Destroya, it was almost like a killjoy version of Romeo and Juliet, except more platonic and a hell of a lot more fun. Er, Juvie Hall version? Undergrounder? 

Sandman nodded. “Yeah. Horrifying. And I don’t know if those inhibitor collars are really going to work on him; his powers control  _ others,  _ not himself. He’s powerful.” 

“So am I, when I’m not getting shot. I think you’ll be fine. Have one of the other Suitehearts talk to him.” 

“ _ Oh, yes, Sandman, go ask his other best friends to go talk to him and save yourself the trauma by giving it to them!”  _ Sandman mocked, high-pitch and in too much self-deprecating faith to be a jab. 

Kobra hummed, some Mad Gear tune he’d heard on WKIL the last time he was out. Destroya, he wanted to see another concert, or go racing, or see Cherri or Newsie, or… See his bike. 27 must wonder why he’s been gone so long. 

“Sandman?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Do you know how difficult it is to wage war when you’re underprepared and underequipped?” Kobra asked, an underlying lilt to his tone. Sandman was anxious and pacing, like a rat in a cage who didn’t know where his boundaries were anymore, and Kobra  _ was  _ put into a cage; an Infirmary with a rib injury and two crewmates unaccounted for. 

It was starting to sound a lot like a bad horror movie. 

Regardless, Kobra knew a good way to make sure they weren’t  _ still  _ caged animals when the time came, and with the sands always shifting to accommodate time’s slow march, that time would come. 

“We’re not waging war,” Sandman said slowly, rolling the words around on his tongue, seeing how  _ wrong  _ they felt. But if you were a rebel, that was the only thing you knew.  _ War.  _ Against the sun and the sand, against each other; against BLI. War was another language and one they all spoke fluidly. “We’re just making sure there  _ isn’t  _ a war.” 

“Do you know, then, how to  _ stop  _ a civil war?” Again, Kobra tried for calm and collected, though he didn’t know how well he came across when he was the one sitting up, injured. He wouldn’t take himself seriously - it was hard to treat  _ anyone  _ with an ounce of respect when they were a leather jacket without a shirt underneath. 

That was because it was difficult to get a shirt on when he had bandages wrapped around aching ribs, but still, the point still stood. 

Sandman swallowed, hard  to pinpoint with the darkness surrounding him. He needed to  _ knock that shit off;  _ Kobra hated when he couldn’t read someone, and it’s hard to read someone when you can’t see their expression. 

That’s what masks were for, he supposed. 

“I don’t think it’s a civil war,” said Sandman, eventually, his voice settling into the dark like one settled into the dark at night. “Not yet, at least.” 

“But it will start. You  _ know  _ it will. Are you willing to take that chance?” 

“You know you could just start with what you’re trying to rope me into, right? You sound like an infomercial for, like, life-saving detergent or something like that. What do you  _ want,  _ Kobra Kid?” 

Kobra grinned, though the light didn’t reflect the glint in his eye. He may be stuck on bed-rest, out-of-action until his ribs stopped sending stabbing pains to the rest of his body, but that didn’t mean everyone  _ else  _ was down for the count. “I think it’s time for a trip to the Zones, don’t you? We know a thing or two about  _ war,  _ Raven.” 

Silence. 

Then, quietly, “Don’t call me that. What could the desert ever help with?”

“You’d know if you drove me out there.” 

“Oh, that’s what you want. You want a driver. You’re gonna leave the rest of your crew, huh?” Apparently, Sandman wasn’t up with humoring him, instead cutting right to the heart of what Kobra was trying to ignore. 

And phrasing it in the worst way possible, though Kobra supposed he deserved the bitter end of the stick. That was what he was trying to do. “Only for a trip. I wouldn’t leave them. But if we’re caught in  _ your  _ civil war, then there’s not a chance for them. So yes, I think a trip to the Zones is warranted.” 

“You… you really think that’s a good idea?” 

Well, it wasn’t like Sandman was going to go along with it if he thought it was a bad idea, though Kobra didn’t know how far down that  _ dumbassery  _ went, filtered through his blood in a special blend of  _ asshole.  _ In its new form - asshole who paced around in an Infirmary when Kobra couldn’t do the same thing!

Kobra nodded, a few loose strands of hair falling into his hair, which he refused to push out of the way. Too much work; besides, if they were going into the Zones, he’d appreciate every reprieve from the sun he could get. “Easy way for  _ you  _ to get your bearings, get away from it for a second, and look at it from an outsider. And a good way for me to get my crew back together without a blind scramble for Poison.” 

If Kobra’s voice was tense, pulled taut at the idea that he would  _ leave  _ before he would find Poison, the looming prospect of canning his anger staring him down, Sandman didn’t comment on it. “Where do you plan on us going, then?” 

“Zone Four. The Diner. We can stop by WKIL before and after, but I think after is best. Radioing friends in high places and all that.” 

“You can’t drive like that.” 

“I know. I assume  _ you  _ can.” 

_

Sandman could drive. Not well, but he could drive, and apparently, the Underground didn’t invest in vehicles all too often because the truck was covered in dust when Sandman led him to it, hesitantly grinning and calling it a  _ relic of a relic.  _

“Have you ever been out in the Zones before?” Kobra asks idly, staring out at the approaching entrance to the desert; he can already hear the wind whip past the cracked window on the driver’s side, by Sandman, the swirl of sand kicked up from the force. 

The Phoenix Witch wasn’t being kind without her favored hot-shots, it seemed. 

Sandman didn’t answer, not until the darkened, gritty tunnel of the Underground’s measly excuse for a  _ drive-way  _ was out of view, and the sun had come down on them full-blast, just  _ waiting  _ until they were another rusted metal frame for the Zones to swallow. 

“I… used to come out here. Lived here for a while.” 

“Oh. Then how the fuck did you go back to the Underground?” Look, Kobra knew that the life of a Killjoy wasn’t always the life meant for everyone else, in theory, who needed things like stable showers and laundry, but he couldn’t  _ understand,  _ not in practice. 

Why would you ever give up a life of color and neon to live in some dreaded, humid,  _ cold  _ cavern underneath the City you so loathe? Didn’t it weigh on Sandman? The idea that he could be  _ free,  _ he could really be free, and still he chose to sit back in the Underground and pace in the Infirmary after his best friend attacked him?

It wouldn’t be the best option to just run away, but Kobra never would’ve stayed long enough for the situation to come about in the first place. That was part of his deal - that was part of the reason he and Ghoul didn’t get along. 

Kobra always ran from things. 

Like he was doing right now. 

Instead of thinking about all that, though, Kobra hummed, pressing his good hand to the glass of the window. It would be too hot to touch, soon, but the cool glass underneath his palm was a grounding sensation if nothing else. “I used to think of the Zones as this big, people-eating snake.” 

“That’s… okay?” Sandman hummed, his eyes focused on the lack of road in front of them; so close to the walls of Battery City, they had to make sure they weren’t being followed. 

The fact that the dingy old truck was  _ bright purple  _ certainly wasn’t going to help, but Kobra doubted they’d be followed. 

Tumbleweeds had carved their path through the Zones more times than Kobra could count, and the lucky ones had stayed alive. He didn’t consider himself lucky, but he considered the Zones sympathetic, and their path would be laid out for them, too. “Yeah. I was young, like, fifteen or something? And I thought the Zones were  _ just  _ like a people-eating giant snake, because sometimes they just… swallow you up and you disappear. Or they swallow someone else up and you have to deal with it. Or there’s an acid storm - vomit? - and you have to pray to Destroya you don’t get caught out in the middle of it.” 

“I used to think of them as a big, soaring raven,” Sandman shrugged, his knuckles digging into the steering wheel; Kobra could  _ hear  _ the crinkle of fabric when his gloves rejected the steering wheel’s old discolored leather. “Like - like the Phoenix Witch was the Zones’ eye, and Destroya was its nest. And sometimes, it would swoop down and take the lucky ones, and sometimes its wings would knock over the ones that couldn’t make it, but it could never be in one place at once.” 

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Kobra, though he wasn’t going to argue with a child’s theory. “The Zones  _ are  _ the Zones. It can be wherever it wants.” 

“Tell that to the kid that just lost his mom.” 

Oh. Tragic backstory hadn’t been what he was going for, so Kobra cleared his throat, backtracking. “If the Zones are one big raven, or people-eating snake, then why is it so full of life?” 

“It’s natural to find beauty in the danger. Freedom in the chaos.” 

“You’re a poet, aren’t you?” Kobra asked. It was meaningless small talk, but he supposed it was worth it; know thy enemy and all, or something like that. 

Not that they were enemies, not at the moment. Kobra trusted Sandman about as far as his eyeliner would last in the heat - two minutes. Er, that’s not how… Botched metaphor aside, Kobra wouldn’t be sitting in this truck with Sandman driving if they hadn’t been on a run together, and both had something to gain. 

Sandman hummed, staring out into the abyss of tumbleweeds and cracking ground, and the occasional dune of sand that passed them by with little mind; Route Guano was coming up soon, based on the various danger signs meticulously placed to keep people  _ away  _ from it. 

A lost cause, considering it was the only highway that spanned all the way from Bat City to Zone Six. 

It looked like their moment into the past was over, and Kobra was more than willing to let it rest; some memories need to be brought to life before they could be put to rest, and… And he hadn’t told anyone other than Poison about that stupid theory, about the Zones being a people-eating snake. 

It wasn’t anything deep. It was just something he’d thought about on long, cold nights when his stomach rumbled and goosebumps covered his arms like a second skin and Poison and him clung together, cold and numb and so unbelievably  _ free  _ they could choke on it.

But it was something about it, something about the  _ memory,  _ that it was only appropriate to share in much the situation it had been conjured up; in a vehicle on the Getaway Mile praying for someone to save them. Save  _ Poison.  _

Righteous anger aside, it was a sweet notion. 

It became more of a bittersweet blade on his tongue as each Zone passed by, as time kept ticking and neither of them bothered to fiddle with the radio, silent in the truck save for the occasional directions to keep from getting lost in the expanse of  _ nothingness.  _

“You see the Diner?” Kobra’s voice came out raspier than he was expected, that  _ bitterness  _ seeping into his tone like blood from a slit throat. “Up ahead, neon signs and general post-apocalypse vibes?” 

“We  _ are  _ in a post-apocalypse,” Sandman huffed, but didn’t say anything further, and Kobra didn’t give any further instructions. 

It would be nice to talk to  _ anyone  _ outside of his crew that he  _ trusted,  _ he thought; the firefight they’d been in had been a supply run, but it had been half-assed and half-planned; Kobra hadn’t thought to take his radio before he left, or… A lot of his things. 

_ Runway.  _

“You mind if I pack a duffel or two for the rest of the crew?” Kobra asked, mostly because he wouldn’t be carrying them when he did, inevitably, pack a few things. 

Killjoys were supposed to pack light, live like a ghost in the wind in case they needed to disappear like that. Ghoul and Jet - they used to live like that, but something about Poison and Kobra brought out the side of them that cared about mementos and other shitty personal things like that. 

Sandman shook his head, and out in the desert, out in  _ his  _ turf, Kobra decided he would get a pile of sand into that boy’s hair or he would die an unhonorable death. Give him merit to his name. “Go ‘head. Want me to come in with you, so you don’t pull any of your stitches?” 

“Aw,” Kobra grinned, not meaning it in the slightest as he struggled to open the door of the truck; it was  _ fighting him,  _ and he did not appreciate that, especially as it  _ popped  _ open and he stumbled onto the ground. “You wanna help me! What do you really want?” 

“To make sure you don’t pull your stitches or hurt yourself.” 

“Nice try. I’ll figure it out. Don’t touch  _ anything  _ or I swear to Destroya I will gouge your eye out before you have the chance to  _ blink  _ one more time.” 

Based on the way Sandman stepped back, blinking owlishly, Kobra assumed that he considered the threat legitimate, as it was. 

Before they stepped into the Diner, Kobra stopped short, staring out at his home. The sign was all fucked up, and the sun had not been kind to the once-vibrant colors, and though it read  _ DINER,  _ it might as well have been screaming _ HOME.  _

He knew better than anyone that home was the people you made it, not where you lived, not in a place like the Zones, but it was still a comforting thought; all the good and the bad nights in the dingy little Diner made life a little brighter. 

Not that the sun needed any help with that. 

Nevertheless, Kobra swallowed as he passed the Diner doors, the little chime of the old bell alerting no one of his presence other than himself; it was just like they’d left it, messy, with belongings strewn about the floor and paint splashed across the tiles that  _ refused  _ to come off, and had for about two years.

It was  _ home.  _ Destroya, Kobra could cry if the stifling heat wasn’t crawling under his skin; the cold of the Underground must’ve made him forget how harsh the Desert could be, how the heat was as much part of you as your eyelid. 

“You live like this?” Sandman snorted, glancing around; Kobra could see him out of his peripherals, and as instructed, Sandman was keeping his hands  _ far  _ away from anything he could accidentally knock over.

Kobra shrugged, though awkwardly and with only one shoulder. Damn injury. “‘Course we do. It’s nice to have an actual place to sleep.” 

“It’s a  _ diner.  _ Do you guys have, like,  _ rooms  _ or anything?” 

“Sure. I sleep in the old walk-in freezer. It keeps the heat in when I want it to.” 

Sandman scoffed, seemingly unable to believe you would  _ ever  _ need extra heat in the desert. It was forced. It was forced, so he was trying to compensate for something, and Kobra wondered what had happened when he was little. 

_ The soaring raven overhead, taking those it deemed as its favored.  _ It bled of a crying little boy’s lie to cover up what had happened to him. Parents did that; they traumatized their children somehow, someway, even if they were never a part of their lives. 

Wasn’t it fucked up? 

That being said, Kobra didn’t plan on thinking about someone  _ else’s  _ life problems when he had his own to keep at bay - and he needed to find his radio. 

It should be in his room, sitting on the bed next to Runway. 

“Stay here,” said Kobra, not bothering to sugarcoat the words or admit to  _ himself  _ that he was anxious to see his bear again; more so than he wanted his radio, he wanted his  _ teddy bear.  _ Runway was worth the drive. Runway would  _ always  _ be worth the drive. 

Sandman, dutifully, hung back and fidgeted, but Kobra was bee-lining to the kitchen,  _ past  _ the kitchen - to the old walk-in freezer that served as his  _ bedroom,  _ with an old twin sized mattress that had seen better days and so many throw blankets they were as heavy as two comforters. 

Runway! 

And his radio, of course, but Kobra scrambled for the bear before he spared a glance at the object - his ribs burned, and he half-collapsed onto his pillows, but he didn’t care,  _ couldn’t  _ care, because he had Runway and if he had Runway then their bad luck streak was over. It would  _ have  _ to be over. 

The Zones may be a people-eating snake, but if they were, then Runway was a protector, who would fight them off with a little teddy bear sword. 

But the stuffed bear couldn’t communicate across miles and miles for him, so eventually, Kobra had to sit up, his back resting against the cold metal of the room as his ribs decided amongst themselves whether he should be in pain or not. 

And then he had to grab his radio. It was all slow, methodical, but it was so much fucking  _ work,  _ for some reason, and he was  _ tired,  _ and he didn’t know whether he was tired of life or tired of the situation or tired of being away from home, but the exhaustion was there and sleep was a luxury in both this lifetime and the next, so he wasn’t going to be napping any time soon. 

Change the frequency. Hold your bear close. Speak. 

His voice came out more cracked, more  _ croaking  _ than he meant it to, though Kobra could’ve sworn he’d drank water before they left. “Cherri? Cherri Cola?” 

It took a minute or two for the response, but it came nonetheless, and Kobra could hear this faint  _ laughter  _ through the radio even though Cherri certainly didn’t  _ cackle  _ like that. Huh. The Zones were coming to life again, he supposed. “Kobra? Kobes? Holy shit, is it really you?” 

“‘Course it is, Soda Pop. Who’d you think it was going to be?” 

“A ghost.” 

_ Fuck.  _ Kobra winced, and it wasn’t from physical pain. “Sorry, not ghosted yet. But close to it. Had a close call earlier, can’t look after my left to save my life. Literally.” 

“Where have you  _ been?  _ We’ve all been worried sick! Rumors are flyin’ Snow White ‘bout y’all - D had to stop a  _ Mad Gear  _ song to address them!”

Cherri’s worry came through the radio just as was intended - heavy and slightly panicked, with the radio’s touch of buzzing, enough to wake Kobra up from the bone-deep exhaustion in his bones, like he hadn’t moved in weeks. 

“Sorry, Cherbear. There was a…” How did he paraphrase everything that had happened? It wasn’t exactly a small list. “There was a firefight, we all got banged up pretty bad. Poison’s been in a, um, in a coma. We’ve been down in the Underground.” 

“ _ And you didn’t fucking call me?”  _

“Sorry!” Kobra huffed, though he wasn’t regretting Cherri’s worry. Cherri had good intentions, always did - and he deserved to get some of his frustration out, too. Kobra wasn’t the best at being a good friend. “It’s been hectic. From - from near coups to runs to this weird goth dude who -” 

“You met Sandman, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, how did you…” 

“We used to know each other. Call it another life. But you can’t - you  _ know  _ the Underground isn’t for Killjoys, right? We have the desert, they have the Underground, that’s just how it works. We aren’t welcomed there.” 

“As killjoys or because we have superpowers?” Kobra knew the answer, and still, his words echoed off the walls of the room, taunting, threatening. 

If he hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought he saw dust kick up from somewhere. But there wasn’t any dust in his room - couldn’t be. They made a strict,  _ no sand inside  _ rule, which everyone other than Ghoul  _ tried  _ to abide by.

“Both,” Cherri whispered, barely coming in over the static, but his voice, his  _ warning  _ still echoed through Kobra’s head like a bass drum. Fucker, really? “You can’t stay there. It won’t end well.” 

“It already hasn’t, Cherbear. Poison’s in a coma and - and Jet’s missing, and -” 

“Jet’s missing? Jet’s  _ missing  _ and you didn’t lead in with that?” 

“I can’t talk about this over radio. You  _ know  _ you need the rundown. WKIL, by sunset work for you?” 

Cherri cursed, though he intentionally made it foggy and unable for Kobra to quite understand. “Fucker. I’ll be there. You’re lucky you’re one of my favorites.” 

“Truly. Could you bring a can of gas, too? I don’t remember 27 having a full tank.” 

Cherri didn’t answer beyond that, though Kobra knew he could, begrudgingly, bring the can of gas; Cherri was like that. 

He didn’t know whether he loved or loathed Kobra, or Ghoul, but he definitely had a friendly rivalry with Poison (you could call them arch-nemeses. Nemesi?) and a not-quite-love with Jet, but he would help them out in a heartbeat. 

And this was their heartbeat, and once again, Cherri delivered. 

Which meant that Kobra had  _ more  _ radio waves to send out, and he sighed and he stood up, wincing from the pressure on his ribs when he bent over; the duffel bag in the corner of his room would finally see some use. 

He’d own it in a pseudo-poker game a year or so back, but killjoys were supposed to travel light and without enough material items to  _ fill  _ a duffel bag, save for maybe food, so he hadn’t had much use for it. 

Runway sat on his bed, curious, watching him work, and when he picked the ratty old bear up, he kissed its forehead before stuffing it in the bottom of the bag. 

Time to get to work, see if he could balance his bag on his shoulder and his radio on the other, while adding more objects. 

Change the frequency, first, right. 69.6. NewsAGoGo’s (favorite) frequency. 

“NewsAGoGo? Newsieeee? News?” 

Kobra just kept finding ways to bastardize her name with various nicknames that she would, no doubt, sock him in the arm for later, until she answered, her signature drawl ringing out through the radio in the way only a DJ could manage. “What do you need, hot-shot? I’m about to go on-air.”

“Weren’t worried for me at  _ all?”  _

“Just wondering why sales were down. And then I realized you weren’t there,” Newsie deadpanned, though Kobra caught the lilt of concern twisting her words. Newsie’s love language was  _ insults,  _ and Kobra knew it  _ well.  _

“I’m  _ certain  _ all your  _ lovely  _ nightclub patrons missed me so so  _ much.  _ But we have business, Newsie. Somethin’ bad happened. I just told Cherri.” 

Newsie cursed under her breath, much like Cherri; all the radio stars started to pick things up from the other ones. It was almost comical. “Shit. WKIL later? I assume it’s a group affair by now, if you got Cherri involved.” 

“Yeah, WKIL, sundown. I’ll be bringing a… um, let’s call him a guest for now. It’s heavy. You might wanna bring Chimp, make sure Pony’s in for the night, if you could?” Kobra sighed, and maybe his stress seeped into his words because Newsie didn’t protest the extra workload. 

“See you there, Kid. Don’t die before then.” 

With that, Newsie was gone, static coming from the radio, and Kobra ignored the sigh bubbling up in his throat. 

It was easier to talk about on the radio, wasn’t it? About everything that was going on, the way he’d  _ lost  _ two fucking crewmates in the span of two weeks and only had an unsteady truce with the other? 

The way he  _ ran away  _ when he should be down there with Ghoul, when he should be  _ training  _ because he clearly wasn’t  _ good enough  _ to keep everyone together and alive and he couldn’t even  _ glitch _ correctly, and… 

Oh. Right. He was standing stock-still, radio clutched in his hand like a grenade when he was supposed to be packing. Right, because they weren’t going to be back for a while because Poison was in a coma  _ and  _ missing, Jet was missing, and Ghoul was still bitching about… whatever Ghoul bitched about. 

Destroya, they needed to start functioning as a crew, and  _ soon  _ if they planned on getting anything done with Leyline and her ilk around. 

“Kobra? You good? You’re a little, uh,  _ quiet. _ ” Sandman wasn’t the voice Kobra wanted to hear, but it was a voice nonetheless and he methodically started moving again, moving from his disaster of a room to the next, to the backroom - Poison and Ghoul’s room -, to Jet’s room, picking up things he thought would be useful. 

And things he thought they would appreciate, because… because maybe they needed a piece of home, too, something to keep them  _ sane  _ when they were out of their element, away from everything material they loved. 

So that was why Runway, Ghoul’s keychain, and Jet’s sketchbook were all thrown into the bag, carefully placed underneath their spare jackets and spare batteries, spare switchblades; things in the Underground weren’t the same as things in the desert, but in Kobra’s mind, the rules were still the same: you kept running.

Keep running was the name of the game, and if you didn’t play it well enough, you were another ghost haunting the night. 

Sandman didn’t say anything else, and Kobra didn’t start conversation; all he did was nod at the Juvie when handing him the first duffel bag, filling the next one with much the same items. It paid to be prepared. 

And… Fuck. This was going to hurt. 

“Hey, Sandman,” Kobra started, a grimace painting his face, and rightfully so. “Do you, uh, perchance, know how to ride a motorbike?” 

“Used to compete, why?” 

“So you can? Without crashing? And  _ well?”  _

Sandman’s brows furrowed, and if Kobra wasn’t sinking underneath the weight of his life crashing down on him, he would’ve thought Sandman was  _ cute,  _ black curly hair falling into his eyes, and confusion washed over his face. “I mean, I think so. I won a few races back in the Lobby. Why?” 

“Because,” Kobra swallowed, abruptly holding his palm out, but never opening it. “I can’t lean forward too much or my ribs will bitch, I can’t turn to the side, I can’t move too suddenly. I can’t ride my bike.” 

“Am I… am I getting the shovel talk because you need me to ride your  _ bike?”  _

“Motorbike! And yes! You need to be careful with her, because 27’s  _ very  _ important and probably worth more than your entire Underground, you know, so.. Yeah. You need to drive, and I need to  _ trust  _ you to let you anywhere near her.” 

Sandman snickered, echoing throughout the dirty walls of the Diner’s kitchen, covered in graffiti, rust, and  _ grime. _ “That’s - that’s fuckin’ - that’s  _ rich. _ Whatever. I won’t crash ‘less I wanna irritate the shit out of you.” 

_ “You won’t!” _

“Fine, fine, fine.” Sandman rolled his eyes, reaching up to grab what he assumed was the key out of Kobra’s hand; Kobra grimaced, refusing to let go, until finally, he dropped the key into Sandman’s hand; it was painted on the top, a sunflower. “She pretty?” 

“Prettier than you could ever  _ dream  _ to be.” 

With a scoff, the pair made their way out to the side of the Diner, with a tarp and some beams creating their  _ garage;  _ Kobra had given Sandman both of the duffel bags to lug into the passenger seat of the truck, though he was still holding them. 

27, if she could’ve, would be  _ glaring  _ at him. 

She was covered in dust, and there must’ve been a storm or something, because she wasn’t gleaming like she was supposed to, and she needed a repaint, but she was one of Kobra’s few  _ constants  _ and his heart ached when he realized that he wouldn’t be the one at the handlebars. 

Damn injury. He’d  _ have  _ to let it heal up. 

“How does no one ever steal it?” 

Kobra hummed, since his shrugging ability was limited and he was busy categorizing everything he’d have to do when they got to the Underground, from making the red paint shine to re-tracing the loud, proud 27 painted on the body. 

Because he wasn’t going to think about the pressing matters that required his concentration and focus. Because that would mean he had to admit that he’d failed and he couldn’t do that. 

Sandman didn’t pry for an answer, maybe seeing the distance glimmering in Kobra’s purple-tinged eyes. A hundred stories and a thousand more waiting to be told, and the only familiar theme running like a river through them, was guilt and loss. 

Instead, Sandman jingled the keys, a smile on his face that didn’t quite match his posture, and said, “Well, let’s get goin’, then. I’ve had my fill of the Zones tonight.” 

Kobra blinked, smiling back automatically before bee-lining back to the truck, with Sandman in tow, following to drop the duffel bags in the truck bed. 

Since Kobra knew the way to WKIL, Sandman would be the one following him, and Kobra knew it was all superficial, just for a drive, but there was a part of him longing for being in the back, standing in the back of the room rather than the center; when Poison would drink up all the attention and he could fade away to the shadows. 

Poison always drove the Trans Am, while Kobra rode shotgun. Poison called the shots and Kobra followed, even if he would bitch about them. 

And Poison was  _ gone  _ and Kobra was the one driving and he didn’t get to melt into the shadows anymore. It seemed his place in the dark had been taken up by Sandman, at least for a day, and Kobra… He didn’t know what he wanted. 

For time to turn back, perhaps. 

It was going to be a long drive back to WKIL Radio, on the edge of Zone Two, with the radio turned up loud and enough guilt to make even the pain in his ribs seem dull. 

_ 

“Fucker!” Downpour hissed, hitting his forehead on one of the seemingly useless drain pipes secured to the ceiling above them. 

Jet, who had been hit in the head via piping at least four times and hadn’t said a word, continued their silence and kept trekking forward, their path illuminated only by the flickering flashlight in their palm. 

They were barely in a crawlspace, but it was the only entrance to the ground level they could find that  _ didn’t  _ involve getting into a firefight when their enemies outnumbered, outgunned, and possibly, were less fucking frustrated than them. 

“You said you used to come down here a lot,” said Jet, in less of a talkative manner, and more demanding. They  _ weren’t  _ crawling in a damp, small,  _ cramped,  _ filthy tunnel to  _ fail.  _ “Do you know where the entrance to the morgue is?” 

“It should be somewhere up ahead,” Downpour answered, rather unhelpfully, though so  _ hopeful  _ that Jet felt sympathy bubble up in their throat. “I think, uh, it should be dark and dusty.” 

“I thought people died here more often than not?” 

“Usually Benzedrine doesn’t want to burn everything down, so we have an actual medic on board.” 

Jet sighed; Downpour was ignoring what they both knew to be true, but they didn’t say anything, and Jet kept crawling. It wouldn’t help to start arguing now. “How often do you get  _ Swingers?  _ I imagine they’re the only ones usually in the morgue.” 

Downpour tsked, though it wasn’t a condescending sound and more like a habit, or something to help him focus. It was kind of calming, actually - Jet might just be missing the constant noise of the Upper Levels, though. “Um, most of the time. Most everyone gets cremated but it’s kinda hard to cremate a pile of bone mush on the floor. They’re lucky if they come to rest in the morgue.” 

“That’s… How old are you, again?” 

“How is that relevant?” 

Jet didn’t answer. Downpour didn’t ask again. It was a nice little arrangement, though Downpour’s instruction skills could use some work, especially as Jet had to squint through each vent to figure out whether he was looking at a pile of dead bodies or not. 

It was hard to try to look for corpses when you only had one good eye. But hey, Jet was doing a hell of a lot better than them.

“There,” said Jet, a smirk lifting their lip up; a morgue was no accomplishment, but  _ finding  _ it was because maybe they could find Poison -  _ needed  _ to find Poison, or it was back to square one, and they hadn’t been exploring the Lower Levels for three days just to go back  _ now.  _

Something wasn’t adding up. Jet couldn’t,  _ couldn’t  _ figure it out. What did it matter?

“Kid, you think you can squeeze past me, get down there? I’m not small enough to fit through the vent opening; you’ll have to pop it open from outside. Can you do that?” 

Downpour nodded, brows furrowed in some confusion Jet couldn’t place. Maybe trying to find that missing piece, but missing pieces didn’t  _ matter  _ if they completed the puzzle anyway! “Yeah, just… I don’t… Doesn’t feel right.” 

“Nothing feels right down here. It’s in the air.  _ Please.”  _

“‘M already going…” But Downpour’s mind was clearly far away, glassy when he squeezed past Jet with the minimal amount of shimmy-ing required to pass someone by in a ventilation shaft no larger than an old chimney. 

Because it was so old, though, it had that old-time trend of having larger vent  _ openings;  _ large enough for Downpour to slip down into the morgue, and because the morgue was considered  _ not the place to be with the reeking with death,  _ there was another opening to the vent, that could be unlatched for maintenance. 

“I don’t.. Jet, Jet this doesn’t feel  _ right.  _ I don’t… I think we need to get  _ out  _ of here. I don’t see Poison, you don’t even need to come down.” 

Mind them for being frustrated, but they’d just spent three fucking days, and - and they couldn’t  _ help  _ the way their voice sunk underneath a  _ wave  _ of something, something that smelt of deception and - “Downpour, kid,  _ you’re going to unlatch the hatch. Now.”  _

Downpour didn’t argue. Instead, with a quiet  _ clack  _ of two latches finally unlocking, the vent opening widened with a cloud of dust as it fell, and Jet ignored the tears prickling at the corner of their eyes, at the way the weight of their voice was sinking in their stomach, now. 

_ Deception was a molotov cocktail.  _ Not the most beautiful way to phrase it, but Jet had been in the Zones long enough to know what manipulation did to a person - to a  _ rebel -  _ and their… Their power  _ was deception.  _

A charm in their voice that  _ made them  _ manipulate without all of the loopholes, all of the tricky maneuvering. 

Downpour shook his head, shaking it slowly, as though the blue streaks in his hair seemed unfamiliar. “I’m… I… Why did…” 

“Just follow me,” whispered Jet, walking past the fifteen-year-old and into the heart of the morgue, and that’s when they  _ realized  _ what the missing piece was, and it wasn’t the dust covering everything. 

It was the  _ silence.  _

When they were in the vents, they would’ve heard  _ something  _ from the patients, because the vents echoed sound, and… And there was nothing. 

No one was there. 

If Jet’s shoulders slouched, if they deflated, you couldn’t blame them. But they had always been observant, and they weren’t,  _ couldn’t  _ take a moment to whine, wallow in their guilt like Kobra seemed so fond of doing.

The counter in front of them, the first thing they saw when their gaze lowered,  _ wasn’t  _ covered in dust. And when tracing the obvious path of  _ dust and not dusty,  _ Jet saw the vent was hanging open, creaking with the draft Downpour and Jet created when they entered. 

_ Someone  _ had been in the morgue, recently, and Jet doubted it was a ghost, considering they didn’t have feet to leave footprints with. 

Downpour was oblivious to Jet’s revelation, rubbing his forehead like he was still trying to figure out why he’d gone against his own resolve, his own  _ will -  _ Stop thinking about it. 

Stop thinking about it and find Poison. Find Poison and keep everyone together before they decided to leave you, too.  _ Find Poison.  _

Could Poison have been the one who’d escaped? 

Glancing back down at the floor, back-tracing the footsteps to a singular hospital bed, a breath hitched in Jet’s throat and they rushed forward, rushed forward to slam their hands into the hospital bed because  _ they’d missed Poison, Poison was here.  _

If the red rubbed into the pillow didn’t give it away, or the unlatched straps sitting idly on the bed, then the  _ device  _ in the center of one of the straps did;  _ lightning bolts  _ flashed within the little device,  _ blue  _ lightning bolts, and Jet had been witness to enough electrical storms to know that was Poison’s signature. 

_ They’d missed Poison.  _

They grit their teeth, clenching their hands on the sidebars of the hospital bed before standing to their full height, purple curls in their peripherals doing nothing more than  _ mocking  _ them. 

They needed to find Poison. With the footsteps leading to the vent, it was possible Poison himself escaped, but Jet doubted it was anything more than a curious child wondering to see what was going on. 

“After two and a half weeks in a coma, Poison wouldn’t be in any condition to hatch an escape plan, not when he’d had one of his electrical mishaps at the beginning. 

See, that was the thing about Poison’s power - it would take and take and take from Poison’s body because it needed more energy than it could manifest, so it sapped his strength or took him over entirely. 

Hence, not in any shape to hatch an escape plan. 

Jet had forgotten their observational skills were better than their hearing. 

“The fuck are you two doing down here?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3 thoughts ???


	7. battle of the bastards, trying to break through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jet Star's got company, and the sugar-sweet tone of their voice is making them sick to their stomach. Then again, how else are they going to get anything done? 
> 
> Party Poison isn't used to the images of death flashing through his head, new memories to scream out at night. And he isn't used to the lab coat on the edge of his vision, or the child by his side, but he doesn't have a lot of time to acclimate, does he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh !! general content warnings for morgues + death + violence

Jet spun on their heel, cursing to Destroya and back when they made eye contact with a red-haired nurse - and they were betting it was the same one who was an ass to Ghoul.

_ Wait.  _ Snappy nurse… Was why she down here? Jet echoed the sentiment back at her, trying to contain the burning in the back of their throat, the  _ anger;  _ they weren’t Ghoul, and they didn’t burn, and they weren’t Kobra, and they didn’t burn  _ up  _ but they  _ wanted  _ to. “Why are you down here? Nurses don’t take care of the dead.” 

“And visitors don’t glance at the morgue,  _ Jet Star,”  _ she snapped, glancing around,  _ freezing  _ in place when she finally looked at Jet. 

Not Jet. What was  _ behind  _ them. 

The empty cot, the one that Poison had clearly been in; the stench of death came nowhere near the mortification written plainly across her face, synthetic skin scrunched up in both concern and horror, like a still from one of those horror movies Jet watched as a kid. 

“Where… where is he? What the fuck did you do? What the  _ fuck did you do with him?”  _

Jet scoffed, swallowing back everything building up in their throat like a bad shot of liquor. “He was already gone. Were you expecting your pet project to stay down here like a  _ dog  _ in the pound?” 

“What does that even  _ mean?”  _ She snarled, making Jet momentarily remember most in the City didn’t know what a pound was. “He was - he couldn’t have - how did you find him?” 

“Common sense,” Downpour chimed in, clearly trying to diffuse a situation that couldn’t help but escalate. 

The nurse snapped at him, raising her hands in what might’ve been a strangling motion if she hadn’t paused halfway through. “Do you know what you’ve fucking done?  _ Do you know what’s going to happen now?”  _

“You kidnapped my best friend,” Jet started slowly, though they didn’t know if their next words were going to  _ flow  _ through the nurse as it did with Downpour, with Ghoul. “You  _ kidnapped my best friend,  _ my  _ comatose  _ best friend, on the word of a madwoman who wants him  _ exterminated,  _ and you put him in a morgue, and you ask  _ me  _ what’s going to happen next?! Do you - you fucking - Tell me what you know. Now.” 

The lilt to their voice had only picked up at the end when the demand was delivered, but the droid paused, stopping short when she opened her mouth with yet another snarl and another bite on her tongue. 

She was trying to fight it. She  _ could  _ fight it. 

But it worked. 

Eventually, she closed her mouth tight, and the synthetic ruby red painting them opened in a much more  _ calm  _ manner. “My name is Red. I’m one the nurse droids in the Infirmary. Your friend was supposed to die down here, but I’m doing it because she made me, so I was trying to make sure he didn’t die in his sleep. He’s gone now. She’ll find out.” 

“Who?” Jet’s voice was thick as molasses, burning,  _ burning  _ down their throat, but they didn’t  _ care,  _ they didn’t care about the burn or the guilt or the fear. They didn’t  _ have  _ any. 

Not when talking to the same fucking droid that brought Poison down to a  _ morgue.  _

“Leyline. She tells us not to refer to her by name in conversation. She had us bring all the patients down here.” 

“Why is Poison the only patient in the morgue?” 

“He isn’t.” 

Glancing around, all Jet could see was hospital cots, corpses covered in sheets,  _ decay  _ ringing out through the morgue like death’s echoing call. 

Instead of responding to that, instead of asking  _ what happened to them, who did this,  _ Jet grit their teeth and pulled their attention back to the nurse, back to  _ Red.  _ “Where the fuck did he go?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t know, I was coming to give him water when I saw you. He can’t have gotten far. Physically he must be weak after being in a coma for two and a half weeks. We need to find him.” 

“ _ You  _ don’t need to find shit.” It was the only thing they had the galls to say when they didn’t know what they could do, when the person that had made their life living hell for the last three days was standing right in front of them under a trance they had put them under. 

Sometimes, the Zones were complicated, but Jet would take arguing over Dr. D’s radio station any day than stand in front of the droid that had kidnapped Poison and be unable to hurt her, unable to  _ want  _ to hurt her. 

She meant well. She didn’t want to take him down here. She hadn’t starved him, hadn’t dehydrated him; kept him alive in the morgue. 

What was Jet supposed to  _ do?  _

“Kid,” Jet said, even and level and not at all smooth like silk and just as deceiving as silver, “It’s time for you to go. You need to go. Red, you’re helping me or Destroya be damned you won’t see another day beyond this  _ morgue. _ ”

Red swallowed, the moment strangely visible; Jet chalked that up to being a droid, and a former Red-Light Doll at that - it was by design. Nevertheless, she answered, no longer a shaking waiver to her voice from Jet’s  _ coercion.  _ “I can’t. I can’t, she’s - she’s helping me. He needs to  _ die.”  _

“Why didn’t you just kill him like you killed  _ them?”  _ Jet gestured around, wild; they didn’t care anymore. They could shout as loud as they wanted in a fucking morgue. 

And with Downpour scurrying back into the vents,  _ leaving  _ as they told them to, there was no one around to get hurt. 

Other than the droid that fucking kidnapped Poison. Other than the nurse that told Ghoul  _ they weren’t family.  _ Other than Red, the subject of their rage in the only way they could see it. 

In that moment, Jet understood what everyone meant when they said they saw  _ red  _ with rage, and it wasn’t neon synthetic hair. 

Red hissed, but it wasn’t all there, her heart wasn’t in it. “I didn’t kill them and they didn’t die slowly. Most of them are Swingers.” 

“Most of them? The fuck do you mean  _ most of them?”  _

“You don’t… Jet Star, you don’t want to know.” 

“Does it look like I give a shit what you fucking think? I  _ asked  _ what happened to them and you’re  _ going  _ to tell me, aren’t you?” 

There it was again; the sweetness to their voice, the  _ power  _ that flowed through it, that overcame anything Red wanted. 

She didn’t bother fighting it, though; her heart wasn’t in it. Or maybe she just knew she would eventually give in, that it wasn’t worth the effort. Either way, Jet didn’t care; she still spoke. “An experimental meta-gene serum. It’s supposed to activate the meta-gene if they have it, and…” 

“And if they don’t, it does this, correct?” Jet gestured around once again, to the bodies under the sheets, and Destroya, Jet didn’t want to see what was underneath them.

Red nodded decisively, a sigh on her lips that slipped through the guise of power forcing the truth from her. “It tears through the body searching for the meta-gene, and when it doesn’t find it, it starts tearing the body apart from the inside out.” 

With that being said, she slumped, as though she couldn’t bear holding herself up anymore; it was Jet’s power leaving her body, leaving her alone with her own free will. 

Exhausting, but it was what everyone wanted, right? Destroya, Jet shouldn’t  _ need  _ to use their ability this much; they didn’t have to use it like they were now unless they were talking to exterminators, and… 

And Red had kidnapped and brought Poison down to a  _ morgue.  _ That was somewhat the same, right? Wasn’t it? 

Even if she had kept him alive, she’d still done it in the first place - and if she was surprised to see Poison gone, then Poison had gotten out on his own. He’d woken up  _ alone,  _ in a morgue, and… and maybe he thought that they had given up on him. 

Did he think they all gave up on him? 

Did finding Poison cancel out figuring out wherever Leyline’s medical research was - where the  _ serum  _ was? Did Jet even fucking care at this point? 

Did they get the  _ chance  _ to care? 

“What happens when they  _ do  _ find the meta-gene, or what fuckin’ have you?”  _ Meta-gene.  _ It was something along the lines of  _ thing-that-made-developing-superpowers-possible,  _ something all scientific like that, but Jet hadn’t truly had the chance to understand it, and… 

And they didn’t believe that, either. The Phoenix Witch would guide the lives she needed to; that was how it worked. Maybe there was magic working through everyone’s veins, but originally,  _ she  _ gifted it. 

It wouldn’t be abused like this. 

Red shook her head, loose strands of hair from her bags sitting amiss on her forehead. She’d been stressed. Jet didn’t know droids  _ could  _ get stressed. “It activates it. In… Well, whatever it requires, it takes.” 

_ Don’t lose your temper now. Don’t lose your temper now. You can’t lose your temper now. Too close to the truth.  _

The truth was as bitter on their tongue as deception, though, and the sweet sugar from the power had dried up minutes ago. “It’ll kill them.  _ It’ll kill them.  _ Where are they?” 

For a second time, Red shook her head, and Jet didn’t  _ care,  _ interrupting her before any more  _ bullshit  _ could spill out - “It’ll  _ kill  _ them. All of them! What the fuck were you thinking? Leyline is one woman, one _madwoman_ !”

“And she controls half the fucking Underground!” 

Blinking back from her sudden outburst, too consumed in their own rage to have really noticed hers, Red takes the opportunity to wave Jet off. “She doesn’t care; once the meta-gene serum is perfected, it won’t kill, it won’t  _ maim. _ ”

“Why would she develop a serum that brings out what she hopes to destroy?” Jet hissed, _ hissed,  _ and maybe they understood why Kobra named himself after a snake. “You’re contradicting your mission statement in your hope and your  _ humanity  _ and it - it’s fucking  _ sick,  _ Red. It’s sick.” 

“Says the one crawling around a morgue with a child.” It was half-assed. It was half-assed and everyone knew that, though the only  _ jury  _ around were the corpses surrounding them, the morgues standing strong against the living, against the beating of Jet’s chest. 

Jet would say Red fit right in, but a synthetic heart was better than one that was stopped. 

For a moment, all they can do is stare at her, at the way she’s rebelling against what BLI wanted; her hair is choppy and short, and she’s wearing a cloak rather than the scraps BLI provided for her type of droid. 

Wasn’t it cruel the cards she’d been dealt? Could Jet afford that kind of empathy? She fucking - she kidnapped - “Why did you do it?” 

Maybe it echoed. Maybe it didn’t. Either way, Red heard it, and something in her face softened enough for Jet to see the crease lines that weren’t supposed to be possible. The face of something who was left to bring bodies to a morgue. “She’ll help. People - droids like me… aren’t supposed to make it you of the electricity. But  _ I  _ did.” 

“There’s someone you need to smuggle out of the city, isn’t there?” 

Was it enough justification? 

Through their better judgment, their morals got caught in their throat like poison.  _ Poison…  _ They didn’t give Red a chance to do anything more than nod, lunging forward and grabbing her by the front of her cloak; “You’re going to fucking help them, or so Destroya help me, I will  _ make you forget your own damn name.”  _

They didn’t know if they could do that. 

But Red was staring at them with wide eyes,  _ believing  _ eyes, and there was no doubt in her mind that Jet  _ would  _ do that if she didn’t listen. 

It put her between a rock and a hard place, or between (threatened) amnesia and fear, but Jet didn’t  _ care,  _ not when she’d done what she’d done and Destroya, they already felt bad about offering the deal in the first place. 

Then again, maybe they would feel bad about threatening her in an hour’s time. 

“I…” With a pointed, fixed glare on her, Red swallowed, choosing her words like they’d diffuse a nuclear reactor. “I’ll do it. I’ll help. But  _ how?  _ I still need to get Blue out of there!”

“Find a way,” Jet said snidely, releasing her cloak and stepping back, dusting their hands off - not like they were getting rid of dirt, but more like they were trying to clean themself of their sin. Were they? 

With that, they turned on their heel, before Red could say another thing, not thinking through a damn thing because when it came to espionage, making deals didn’t end in dramatic exits before any contact information or meetings could be established. 

What? No one said they had to be smart. 

They didn’t. They just had to find Poison, and Poison clearly wasn’t in Red’s clutches, not anymore. 

Whether he made it into the vents or not could be debated, but… But that was the hope Jet was operating on, hopping back up into the vent themself; they assumed Red would fix it. 

Maybe they hadn’t put the fear of Destroya in her, but she certainly had a decision to make, and… And if she was willing to take care of a comatose boy in a  _ morgue  _ even though she was ordered to let him rot? There might be hope yet. 

_ 

“I’m getting a little tired of your shit,” said Poison, grimacing at the cobwebs stuck to his hair - the hair that had grown out past his chin. He needed to cut that, keep it from getting any further, but he supposed his hair grew quicker when he was too busy being in a  _ coma  _ to dump chemicals on it. 

The ventilation shafts of the Underground were certainly a sight to behold, and not to explore, but he couldn’t help the fact that he was being led around by a child with a cryptic issue. 

It wasn’t… a fun way to start off his mission back to the Zones, but both he and Valen could understand that it wasn’t safe for them to travel outside the vents. 

His hair was far too recognizable, and he was supposed to be in a morgue. Obtaining dye in itself would be an issue, as they would have to go up to the  _ Upper Levels  _ or some shit like that to get it, and Poison didn’t know if he could dye his hair if he tried. 

Killjoy habits died hard, he supposed. 

Valen hummed, a sound that echoed off the vents. No one ever heard them, but still, the hair on the nape of Poison’s hair raised like he was paranoid. After waking up in a morgue, he was allowed to be a little paranoid, right? “Suppose you’ll just have to deal with it. You’re the damsel in distress, you know.” 

“Did you realize that from your children’s books?” 

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea for the twenty-year-old to be bickering with the twelve-year-old, but there wasn’t much else for Poison to do. 

The metal shaft work of the vents loomed ever-closer whenever Poison inched forward; it groaned underneath his weight, wanting him gone, gone, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t inclined to agree with them. 

He’d been stuck in the vents with Valen for a day or so, and he was sick of it. 

The only upside was that he’d had more of a chance to see what had happened, to spy through the gaps, but Valen kept leading him  _ away  _ from all the people, from anyone who had the chance of helping them. 

Poison huffed, and he tried not to let Valen’s words bite. He was young, but he was better at navigation than Poison; a boy who had grown up in the vents and the nooks that everyone else overlooked. 

So, Poison would trust him. Or try to, but that boy was cunning, from breaking him out of the morgue to the carbons that had fallen out of his pocket when they’d first started crawling. 

Before he could stew on it, Valen spoke, high-pitched and frustrated. “I don’t know what they could’ve  _ done.  _ I should’ve found him by now!”

“Found who?” Poison asked instantly, although he didn’t know whether that was because he was concerned about Valen’s plans or because he wanted the opportunity to get the hell out of the ventilation, once and for all. 

Valen waved him off - he was small enough that he could move around far better than Poison could, and it was  _ infuriating.  _ “Doesn’t matter yet. I just need to find him first!”

“You know this place better than anyone. There’s no one around here, you know that. It’s all abandoned.” 

Valen shook his head, neon green locks matted down by grease and grime - the kid didn’t get showers very often. Poison knew his hair probably looked the same. “It’s all abandoned, sure, but that’s just what everyone says. The Cleaners are down here all the time, and the Suitehearts were here a while ago. And so was that weird lady, so I assume there’s something down here. There’s only one person important enough to be taken down here.” 

“Wait, wait, back up,” Poison started, grabbing Valen’s ankle to keep him from continuing on their confusing, cryptic little search. “So it’s not abandoned? What the fuck are the Cleaners? And who are the Suitehearts?” 

Valen mirrored Poison’s earlier huff, clearly making a show of explaining. “It’s supposed to be abandoned, but it isn’t, because it’s a good place to hide people - and things - that nobody should see. Creepy place, really, and the Cleaners clean up the bodies from - from, the, uh, from the -”

“Take your time, kid,” Poison added helpfully, or trying to be helpful. Sometimes, Valen crammed up, and everyone was entitled to keep their secrets. 

Including children; children that were leading him through the unfamiliar ventilation of an unfamiliar place, etc., etc. 

Valen took a deep breath, stock-still save for how his hair fell into his eyes from, supposedly, screwing his eyes shut. “I’m good. Totally good. Uh, the Cleaners clean u?:p the bodies from the ground level. Swingers fall from the catwalks up there and end up on the floor below, and someone’s gotta clean them up. The Suitehearts sort-of run this place - they took over after the old leader died, though they’re really strange. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them all in one place.” 

Poison released Valen’s ankle, and, as quick as an agitated, traumatized eleven-year-old could, he started scampering forward through the vent, not acknowledging their previous conversation. “So… Who are we looking for?” 

“The Suitehearts. Er, a Suiteheart. His name is Dr. Benzedrine and he’s more like the  _ sole  _ leader, but he’s been missing for a long time. Until a weeks ago when he tried to, like, attack the Med-Bay place or whatever, and the other Suitehearts took him down here.” 

“And you know that… how?” 

“I don’t go up to the Upper Levels.” Valen didn’t expand. 

Poison didn’t ask.

Beyond that, though, Valen seemed to find what he was looking for, giving an excited gasp before taking a sudden turn (could you take a sudden turn in a vent?), this way and that and certainly not a path Poison could easily retrace. 

The kid seemed to keep a small screwdriver on him, in one of those ratty pockets in the jeans that were too big on him, because the vent cover he was presented with was gone in seconds, with little screws rolling down, until they hit Poison’s hand, grimy and disgusting from the muck in the system. 

Valen, however, wasn’t nearly as good at jumping out of the vents as he was crawling through them, from the unceremonious way he dropped down and a resounding  _ FUCK  _ echoed throughout the hallway. 

So much for subtly, and child-like language. 

While he was still stiff, Poison was able to awkwardly drop himself down to the floor, landing with a  _ crack  _ from the bones in his ankle. Nothing was broken, but certainly fucking  _ sore;  _ he’d never broken a bone in his life, not yet at least, but still, more of his joints popped than was probably recommended. 

He grit his teeth, refusing to cry out from the harsh landing and the strain on his ankle -  _ fuck  _ muscle atrophy, he was  _ so  _ not going into a coma again. 

Valen was already tugging on his sleeve, pulling him in the direction of wherever, seemingly not bothered by the fall he’d taken. 

Kids who grew up with scrapes and bruises must be used to it - Valen was one of those kids, would  _ always  _ be one of those kids. It was almost… sad, really. 

Regardless, Poison wasn’t going to let the cautious silence of the hallway stall his thoughts; thinking on task was impervious to success. Or something like that. Ghoul had said it once before getting thrown on his ass by Kobra in a sparring match. 

(Kobra would never win a match against Ghoul if Ghoul was allowed to play dirty.)

“Did you find him?” Poison asked, to keep the silence out of his head. Ghoul, Kobra, Jet - they all  _ hurt  _ to think about, probably thought he was dead. 

_ Kobra  _ probably thought he was dead. 

Like usual, Valen shook his head, refusing to let go of Poison’s sleeve; the hallway was more of a  _ corridor,  _ because that sounded fancier to Poison, and it was certainly less paint-stained than the hallways of the Diner. 

Sleek, gray metal lined the walls, from the floor to the ceiling, though the ceiling was just the pre-existing rock looming down at the occupants of the hallway, with steel beams randomly placed along the walkway to support it. 

Occasionally, little holes popped out of corroded metal, though some looked intentional - Valen only glanced at them once before scurrying along again, whispering something along the lines of, “I’ve met what’s down there. Let’s keep going.” 

So, Poison kept going. He didn’t want to know. 

This place, it wasn’t  _ right.  _ It stood for rebellion and yet it was as colorless as the place it tried to protect? It gave way to children who crawled around the vents like they were home - who adamantly refused to set foot on anything higher up than the near-ground level. 

Well, they were  _ on  _ the ground level now, and while Poison couldn’t see it, he could hear the drip of water hitting the metal, no doubt on its first year of corroding the metal down to its skeleton. 

He could understand why no one wanted to go down here. 

The dim white lighting of the corridor flickered from shaded lights set into the walls on both sides of the wall, and three of every five bulbs were out - light, out, out light, out, the same pattern over and over, as though it was intentional. 

Valen passed the door, occasionally, with small metal windows foggy with  _ something,  _ the ghost of what was inside. 

Something slammed into one of the doors. 

Valen gripped his arm tighter, pushing them both into a run. He didn’t like the ground level, either, then - not like Poison could say he  _ did,  _ the hairs on the nape of his neck standing straight up. 

Alarm, concern,  _ fear -  _ whatever you called it, the corridor elicited it without fail. 

“He’s here, he’s got to be here,” Valen mumbled, echoing throughout the (hopefully) empty space, silent footsteps despite the panic in his voice, choked up and confused and everything a child didn’t deserve to be. 

If they made it out of here alive, Poison would make sure there was something better waiting for Valen at the end of it all. A light at the end of the tunnel. 

If he saw a light at the end of  _ this  _ tunnel, though, Poison might just scream. 

The child mumbling frantically to himself the more they walked combined with the generally horror-movie-esque atmosphere of the hallway made for one hell of a nightmare scenario, though Poison wasn’t going to think about everything that could be lurking in the shadows. 

Maybe this was a good time to miss the Desert, to miss the sand that covered every-fucking-where you didn’t want it to, where it was impossible to find shade  _ anywhere  _ because the sun would blister down on everything and anything from the thinned atmosphere. 

Destroya, Poison missed the sun - and anything that wasn’t the ground level, or Valen’s mumbling. 

Eventually, though, Poison bumped into said child, hip mope of hair hitting just above Poison’s hip as he scrunched gray eyes toward a metal access panel. 

Nothing around them suggested it was more than empty like the others. 

Or had  _ something else,  _ something  _ other  _ living in it. While he didn’t want to think about that too much, it was still lingering, an icicle looming in the back of Poison’s head - where he replayed all of the horror movies he’d seen. 

“What’s up, kid?” said Poison, light and airy; or as light and airy as he could manage with the weight of the tunnel condensing it down, far more like a scared whisper than intended. He wouldn’t be scared. 

Not in front of a child, not in front of  _ anyone.  _

Valen continued staring, refusing to answer and refusing to move, another ghost haunting the halls. 

“Kid? Kid, seriously, what the  _ fuck  _ are you doing?” 

Valen’s shoulders flinched back, preparing for  _ something  _ that wasn’t the harsh lilt to Poison’s voice (because he wasn’t, he  _ wouldn’t  _ be weak in front of anyone). “Benzedrine is in this one. He’s gotta be.” 

This again? He was  _ so certain?  _

Then again, this was Valen’s turf, the same ground he’d raised himself on - more than any kid should -, and it wasn’t Poison’s place to question that. Even if he wanted to. 

Even if… Witch, he kept going in circles, he kept thinking one thing and then doing the exact opposite, and he kept thinking about how Valen was a kid and how neither of them should be in this situation, and that it was bonkers all around, and - 

And did he just think  _ bonkers?  _

Maybe being in a coma had fried his fucking brains. 

Snapping Poison out of his thoughts with a startled blink, Valen continued with his pointer finger tapping lightly on the cold, grimy metal above the keypad. “This one’s cleaned, and it’s shiny with oils, like from your fingers and stuff when you haven’t showered for a while. I just… Uh… Need the code ‘n stuff. And it’ll be him!”

“Do you really think that it’s a good idea to go see him? Would he be in there if he hadn’t done something - you  _ said  _ he’d done something, didn’t you?” 

Don’t mind him if his memory wasn’t the best over the course of the last three days - unlike Kobra, his default when faced with unknown circumstances wasn’t to categorize and file away every little bit of information he could get his hands on, and rather to try and block all of it out until something familiar came out of the confusion. 

Unfortunately, nothing familiar was going to come out of this, though Valen acted a lot like Kobra had when he was that young (the thought made Poison nearly snort, especially when he leaned against the hallway wall and saw Valen’s nose scrunched up in concentration, like Kobra.) 

Fitting that Valen was ignoring him, too. 

“Go a little further with your logic,” Poison shrugged, gesturing vaguely out at the keypad, echoing the same words that Kobra used to throw at him whenever they were playing a game that Poison just couldn’t understand. 

_ Go a little further with your logic. The answer usually rests there, just stay with your logic.  _

For as hot-headed as his little brother could be, Kobra did have a few good words here and there - he must’ve come up with them somewhere between getting his lights knocked out and knocking someone else’s lights out. 

With a huff, Valen slid his eyes back over the keys, muttering to himself, with a lot more curse words in there than probably appropriate for twelve-year-olds. 

Poison didn’t bother trying to understand any of it - Valen had his own little code made up, something completely out of Poison’s comprehension with the imagination of a child that didn’t have anything else to do in his free time. 

Those were  _ always  _ the hardest codes to crack. 

Regardless, he tried not to hover while Valen worked, occasionally pointing at this or that, but never touching anything, and at one point, slamming his head into the door. 

He came away with soot smeared across his forehead and a grimace painting his young face, but Poison didn’t comment on it and Valen didn’t say a word, not even in his code, not anymore.

“You know,” Valen huffed, clearly trying to talk to Poison and not whatever little tech expert was helping him in his thoughts. “This would be a  _ lot  _ fucking easier if I could just, you know, ask Benzedrine what the code was myself!” 

“Why would he know it?” 

“He’s the leader of the Underground, why  _ wouldn’t  _ he know what the fucking code to the fucking cells are?” 

Poison ruffled his hair - grinning when he got a frustrated  _ tt  _ from Valen. “Because, from what I recall you telling me, he’s the leader of the Underground who attacked his own infirmary, and then got kidnapped by a chick with a really strange name. Am I right, or?” 

Valen frowned, furrowing his brows with indignation, cheeks  _ alight  _ with what was most likely embarrassment. “Er - yeah. Forget I said that. I didn’t say that. Um, anyway, he would probably still know it, because he was put into the cell, right? Like, he was there, but that would mean there was no way to access it from the inside, so…” 

And then Valen started switching between English and between his own code, so Poison tuned out again, glancing around the hallway. 

If Benzedrine  _ had  _ been put into this particular cell by that particular lady, then something told him they were on a ticking clock, waiting and waiting like sitting ducks for the time to run out and they were in trouble.

As smart as Valen was, a living map of the Underground with a quick wit and the intelligence to match, Poison didn’t want him on the bad side of a firefight gone Costa Rica; they were both unarmed and a little voice in the back of Poison’s mind told him that Valen didn’t need to see any more death than he already had. 

When Valen pressed the keys, his nimble fingers flying faster than the eye could see, there was the grin that lit up his entire face, and Poison had no clue how he managed to talk while frantically pressing number after number. “Right, so, like, the oils from your skin, right? But this code had to have been imputed a hundred different times for all the keys to look like that, and that didn’t seem right, y’know? So I figured that while it was a four-by-four keypad, it was a combination - er, multiple of four, I think it’s called, and the most likely number after that is fourteen, because the Underground only had fourteen levels when they were making these old dumps, and -” 

If it was anyone else, Poison would’ve told them about one paragraph prior to  _ just say it was dumb luck, dude, it’s fine,  _ but Valen was happily explaining and he wasn’t going to undermine the kid. 

Before he could finish, saying something about Leyline’s access codes, the keypad flashed white - from Valen’s expression, that was a good thing, and with a touch of Valen’s thumb to the small, square panel above the keypad, the metal door slid open. 

Valen bounded in, seemingly not bothered by the fact that he was going in to have a leisure talk with a known traitor and a dangerous one at that (though Poison didn’t know how bad or all that, because he didn’t want to know. Too much information, too much hesitance, this wasn’t his home). 

Poison followed suit, of course, the fucking Robin to Valen’s Batman in this situation, and… well, he couldn’t say he was expecting what he found. 

The man himself was named after an anxiety drug and said to be one of the most  _ off his rockers  _ people in the Underground from the way Valen talked to him, and he was sitting criss-cross in the corner of the illuminated, padded white room (dingy, though, apparently from constant  _ use),  _ in a purple lab coat with a fucking Rubix cube in his hands. 

“They are  _ so  _ weird, you know, so easy to solve and yet the entire concept is null and void when a new pattern presents itself, outside of the regulations, and yet it still does function, but altered to the left like there’s nothing that can truly stop it. Just alter the formula. You can’t do that with chemicals, you know, they don’t like when you mix them without precaution.” 

“You say it like you aren’t touched in the head, Benzedrine,” Valen says eventually, his giddy expressions all but gone now that they were in the thick of whatever Valen came here to accomplish. 

“You say  _ that  _ like you aren’t twelve, Valen,” Benzedrine says back easily, glancing up to the latter with eyes strikingly similar to that of a cat’s - slit pupils and a yellow hue, but overwhelming brown. 

“What happened?” Valen’s voice was considerably softer, but not  _ warm,  _ not like one would say to a friend, or even someone that occasionally provided good confidence. 

How  _ alone  _ was Valen, really? 

Benzedrine sighed, setting the solved Rubix cube to the side and uncrossing his legs - leaning back until his back was touching the ground and he was staring two-tiles away from the light. “It’s something BLI did. You know, you  _ know  _ blood-bending doesn’t work like that, can’t control  _ powers.  _ It doesn’t work like that. The supply mission I went on went haywire, I believe, well… I  _ know  _ Salem was there with me, and… And I don’t know what happened to him. Sorry. But… Something went wrong, and it was all testing facilities rather than rehabilitation. I don’t know what happened from there.” 

“And yet you can - you can remember that - well - you can -” 

Benzedrine was still squinting at the tile, but he held his hand out like he was offering it to Valen. “I know. I said I was sorry. I didn’t see him when I was there, but I doubt… Well, you know them. They probably found a use for a good kid like him.” 

“You let him get hurt!”

“I got hurt, too.” 

Poison didn’t know who  _ Salem  _ was. Poison didn’t know the entire situation, not by a long shot, but he grit his teeth, trying to keep his own attitude at bay while Valen fought his own battles. 

While he didn’t know how old Benzedrine was, Poison was a ripe old  _ fucking adult,  _ though he didn’t feel like one sometimes, and children weren’t meant to be in the line of fire, and - and when you lost one, it was always something that would weigh on your conscience for  _ months,  _ the paralyzing fear and guilt of  _ what did I do,  _ and it was never,  _ never  _ something that - that  _ casual.  _

_ I got hurt, too.  _

Yeah, but Benzedrine was an adult (or near-adult), not a twelve-year-old boy shaking in righteous anger and maybe rage. 

The next part of the conversation wasn’t Poison’s business. Just like Valen’s code, it was wholly and utterly personal and he didn’t have any business trying to figure out what it meant or listening in at all, so Poison drifted a feather-light touch to Valen’s shoulder.  _ I’ll be out in the hallway when you need me.  _

Truth be told, the hallway was far worse than anything Valen’s conversation would hold, but it was the principle of the matter that was at stake. 

And maybe  _ principle of the matter  _ was one of the only familiar things Poison had save for Valen’s attitude, his own signature red hair, and that meant he had to stay as close to it as he could. 

He would find his crew. 

He would. He  _ would.  _ And - and his crew would welcome him back and there was a long road home, longer so without any piece of home with him, but it was a journey he would make and it started here, sticking with his principles and still having a mental fucking breakdown even though he told himself he wouldn’t have any more of those. 

Five seconds, minutes, or two hours later (probably ten minutes, though Poison couldn’t say it was easy to keep track with the slow, inconsistent dripping of water in a nearby leaky pipe), Valen popped his head out of the doorway, red with contained rage. 

Ah, yes, childish traits. Contained rage. It always made for the best, if most scarred, killjoys out there, didn’t it? 

Poison stepped back in, the air itself having changed now that Valen had aired his grievances; the Killjoy held himself with more pride, more confidence in his step, like he was addressing a crowd of cheering, blood-thirsty revolutionists rather than a single traitor. 

“Party Poison. Can’t say I haven’t heard of you before. I assumed you would be taller.” 

Maybe there was a reason everyone wanted to punch him. Grit your teeth, Poison. “I assumed you wouldn’t be sitting in a cell with a solved Rubix cube, but here we are. What do you know about Leyline?” 

(That was the name of the chick they were after, right?) 

“And here I assumed you would be more put together. Why did they even let you check your lab coat?” 

“Because you see, they’re scared of me. They’re scared of me, and they don’t want to upset me, so they let me keep my things. ‘Cept my bat, but I don’t have a ray gun for them to take anyway. It’s rather frustrating, don’t you think?” 

“You hurt people, though. You know you hurt people, so why are you treating it like a game?” And maybe Poison was treating it like a game, too, bantering back and forth with the dangerous mad scientist locked up in a cell that a twelve-year-old broke into for him. 

Benzedrine sighed, hands in his lap like a child caught playing chicken with a fork and an electrical socket. “There’s far more going on in here than me getting locked up. You play by the rules and let everyone else play your piece, and you move on.” 

“Who’s playing your piece, Benzedrine?” 

“The same person playing yours. I imagine that’s why you’re here - with Valen, of all people, the boy in the vents who refuses to let his feet leave solid ground. You’re here because you  _ don’t  _ know what’s going on. You’re here because I’m the person that might know what to do or what’s happening and you’re panicked in ways that you can’t even fully process because you still think you’re a revolution leader.” 

If Poison grit his teeth and choked back more in his throat than he wanted to admit, then, well, he’d never admit it. He  _ wasn’t -  _ he - he had a purpose. He knew what he was doing here.

No, he knew what  _ Valen  _ was doing here. 

And Valen was a child, sure, but a damn smart one, and… 

Poison couldn’t ask right now. He wouldn’t. Regardless, he unclenched his fists by his sides, glaring down at Benzedrine like the statue of a benevolent God to a lost follower. “Could you just answer our questions? We’re not here to - erm, to bother you.” 

“Depends on your questions, of course. I don’t get the best news quality down here, you know.” 

Valen’s face was red with anger, the same contained rage as earlier written plainly across his face - nothing better to do with it, Poison supposed. And nowhere else to direct it. “You - you got him - you got Salem  _ hurt  _ and you - Why did she even  _ move  _ you down here? What  _ happened,  _ Benzie?” 

“I told you,” Benzedrine sighed, avoiding eye contact in favor of fiddling with a stray thread of his lab coat cuffs, an unsteady purple dyed through the fabric. “BLI took me. I don’t know what they did.” 

“Why do they still not know about the Underground?” Look, Poison was confused, not fucking stupid, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to act like he was just another victim in whatever fucking hell was going on. 

Benzedrine shrugged. He still didn’t glance up, and Poison wasn’t going to force him to. He was a… strange man, and if Poison had to guess, had never truly left his childish faze of wonder at the world. “My estimation is that I was the test subject. Used to see how their experimentations would affect me and then cut loose.” 

“They would have to observe you for that.  _ How do they not know about the Underground?”  _

Finally, Benzedrine looked up, eyes burning with something more than the original color. A lot like Poison’s lightning, honestly, whenever he  _ burned out  _ as he liked to call it - “Valen, I think you should leave the room, now.” 

“But -” 

“ _ Now,  _ Valen.” 

Without further protest save for a snarl, Valen pivoted on his heel with crossed arms, out the door he’d unlocked all by his damn self. 

Before Poison could say anything, respond in a way that didn’t make him defensive and pissed off, Benzedrine opened his  _ stupid  _ mouth again. “They do. They’ve known about the Underground for years. They used to try gas-bombing the place, but everyone back from that time is long dead.  _ One,  _ one person knows about us, Poison. It’s no secret.” 

“Don’t fucking make me play guessing games.” Destroya, Poison loathed being in the dark - in the literal dark, in this case, from the shitty lighting to the way Benzedrine was truly something fucking else. 

“ _ The Director.  _ Who else? It’s this game - the leader of the Underground and the leader of Bat City, unable to out the other without so much public backlash it would do the work for the other. Battery City is complacent, yes, but something like  _ fear  _ takes hold and there's nothing to stop them all from rioting. If the Underground found out it wasn’t as safe as they thought, do you know what they would do?

“Panic. They would panic. And once they panicked, that would finally, finally give Better Living the opportunity they need to burn this place to the ground or manipulate it into something even more hellish than what’s upstairs.” 

“So you’re just… biding time? What stopped them from storming the place in your absence?” 

Benzedrine laughed,  _ laughed,  _ a cackle that rang out through his cell and down to Poison’s bones - something so fundamentally  _ wrong  _ about it, the mad scientist didn’t laugh, didn’t smile. “That’s the funny thing about the guessing game. There’s more the Director is guessing than she knows. The leader of the Underground is a mystery to her, ever-changing and shifting when the last one disappears or dies. If she knew, I wouldn’t have been cut loose like a stray dog  _ just  _ too feral to get caught.” 

“That’s a flawed metaphor; strays that are deemed to feral are put down. And you weren’t. Test subject my ass, that’s  _ got  _ to have more to it, doesn’t it?” 

Valen was peering into the room - his gaze burned into Poison’s back more than Poison was willing to admit, but neither of them was going to halt the conversation. Too far in to back out now, especially with the clock ticking. 

“Who knows,” Benzedrine hissed. “There are projects far deeper concealed than anything you’ve ever heard of. Better Living gears to create the perfect future, the perfect  _ people,  _ and we’ve got something other people don't: a  _ metagene.  _ Wouldn’t you exploit that, if you found a way?” 

_ No,  _ Poison thought,  _ I wouldn’t.  _

_ But I would.  _

Maybe it was because he had somewhat of a power complex and thought he was another revolutionist, another  _ hero  _ in the Zones, up there with Mike Milligram and their ilk. And sometimes, you had to fight dirty. 

It had happened a few times, Kobra using his connections to do  _ something  _ that Poison would never ask the details about - his younger brother used to be an Exterminator, after all, and Poison didn’t want to look at how deep that ran through him. Sometimes an extra ten minutes was all they needed to run away licking their wounds. 

Sometimes it was the only way to come out of anything at all. 

Benzedrine’s brow lifted, no doubt seeing the effect his words had on Poison - observing him like  _ he  _ was the experiment here, the one locked up in a cell like an animal. 

_ I need to change the subject.  _

“How did they exploit your metagene, as you call them?” 

Nothing. 

Then, finally, a quiet, “I don’t know.” Benzedrine was gripping at his cuffs still, knuckles white with pressure - like it was a physical  _ pain  _ not to know something. Then he blinked, and all was back to normal, the doctor acting as though he was completely content in place. “My guess, though, is that they isolated my metagene - blood-bending, as I call it - and used something akin to a control chip to manipulate my emotions to activate it.” 

“BLI hasn’t used control chips in years.” Control chips were far out of fashion - faulty and removable, and had a nasty habit of putting the patient into a coma. 

And a coma wasn’t a good way to start off another operation, was it? “Are you sure? Control chips are outdated, sure, but have you seen their alternatives? Have you seen the things they can do to people?” 

“Dracs,” Poison whispered, though he didn’t know how he was really talking to. Benzedrine Himself? Did it matter? 

“Yes,” Benzedrine nodded, approval shining through in his face - an odd look, especially for someone who acted like such a condescending prick. “Draculopids are basically leveled-down versions of what BLI wants to make, but they’re unstable, and have been for years. I did my own research into them, and they basically see their worst fears until the mask itself binds to their face and they have become an empty vessel to be controlled. 

“Their souls are gone. Completely gone. But BLI can’t manipulate souls in the way they think they can, and the resurgence of the metagene completely negates current processes they have - it alters everything about your DNA in ways they’re still researching. Why didn’t your friend burn up when he uses his powers? Shouldn’t he have burnt to a crisp? Shouldn’t he be scared? Shouldn’t your eyes stop flashing blue like a threat? Aren’t you barely more than a human magnet?” 

“That’s - well -” 

“You don’t know how the metagene works,” Benzedrine hummed, switching over to picking at his nails like he was in a goddamn nail salon. 

Then again, what else could he do? What would Poison do in his situation? And… And Benzedrine was right. Poison  _ didn’t  _ know how the metagene worked - didn’t even  _ know  _ it had a name until he’d come to the Underground. 

Regardless of the fact that he came to the Underground in a coma. 

“No, I don’t.” He would be lying if he said that it didn’t take more of his dignity. “But you do. And you - you can’t stay here. You can’t stay here.” 

“He’s not safe anywhere.” 

Glancing back, Valen was now standing fully in the doorway, his fingernails buried into the metal doorframe. His face was set, something like resignation though he was far too young to know what that was. With that, Valen continued, seeing he’d drawn enough attention to himself. “He’s not gonna be safe so long as he’s the leader of the Underground, and Leyline wants him. It’s like when I wanted Salem back.” 

Benzedrine flinched, just in Poison’s peripheral, though he didn’t speak up. 

With Valen bearing his heart like that - that made something in Poison  _ ache,  _ burn up from the inside out like he was getting struck by a lightning bolt for the first time -... It just wasn’t the time to speak up. 

Valen could only carry so much of the conversation, though, and in silence they sat, waiting until the eye of the storm passed and they were back in the gutters, always the underdog. 

Poison would always be the underdog, wouldn’t he? Always, no matter where he went or what he did.  _ Always.  _

“Get up.” Poison was eyeing the doctor, though all he did was tilt his head to the side like a confused puppy - if a puppy could be dangerously unstable.

Nevertheless, Benzedrine stood, rising to his full height, which… wasn’t much. The doctor was rather short, his lab coat damn near dragging on the ground. The only thing from keeping the frayed edges of the purple cloth was the slight heel to the worn-out, gray and gold combat boots he was wearing. 

Destroya, no one helped  _ him  _ pick a color scheme. 

“And what are you planning from here, Revolution In A Bottle?” Benzedrine’s tone was snide, condescending in a way that Poison would never truly understand. But there was something else to it, too, like he was trying to find a way to be polite and just didn’t know how. 

Understandably so, considering his fucking  _ ego  _ was driving Poison up the wall, his muscles tense in ways they never were around Valen. 

_ Valen  _ was obnoxious like kids usually were, but he was never infuriating like the  _ good fucking doctor.  _

“Consider this your escape mission,” Poison said, dry and motionless - but Valen was staring at him, and he gestured toward the door like it would help at all, and Valen seemed to understand. As did Benzedrine, who wasn’t smiling as he moved, leaving behind the solved Rubix cube on the ground. “And if you fuck  _ anything  _ up, Doc, I swear to the Witch I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.” 

“The Witch holds no bearing around here,” Benzedrine shrugged, no tension in his shoulders to be found as Poispon pointedly stared at his back, brows furrowed and gaze fashioned into a glare. 

What was  _ with  _ him? 

“That doesn’t mean I don’t.” 

“That’s exactly what it means,” Valen mumbled, standing in the front of their ragtag little rescue group, arms still crossed and the same potent anger in his tone as before. Less empty, now, and more like his brain was going fourteen miles a minute trying to find some way to make everything  _ sensible  _ again. 

That’s what Poison had always done when he was younger, and what Kobra did, and they hadn’t turned out all too well, in the grand scheme of things. 

And just Poison’s luck, right when it seemed like his agenda was clearing up, that  _ clock  _ he’d sworn was on finally counted down to zero, as they walked into the dark expanse of the ground level.

The hallway swelled up in a supernova of light, illuminating every leaky pipe and piece of garbage littering the old, stained floor like a graveyard; the second’s worth of time before the detonation hit them, and Poison’s first thought was his only action - 

_ Jump.  _

Poison could feel Valen’s gritty, dirty hair on the small of his back, and then… and then  _ nothing.  _

Nothing hurt, nothing  _ burned,  _ nothing even  _ touched  _ him - the flash was barely anything more than a short-term blinding agent, but there was a  _ scream  _ and it wasn’t Benzedrine’s, but it was - 

Oh. 

_ Oh.  _

Valen screamed, the sound of something  _ snapping  _ under Poison as he fell to the ground, the concrete slamming into his chin and he rolled, he didn’t know which way but his back, and then his stomach, and then every limb in his body became well acquainted with as freezing, cold as cold could be. 

And still, still there was something under his skin crawling to get out, and Poison staggered to his feet, his vision blotchy lines of white hallway and dark hallway, double vision in the worst way. 

_ Run, Bunny, run. _

Destroya, he would fucking appreciate it if that voice wasn’t in his head all the time, the same one in his dreams, when he’d been asleep for two and a half fucking weeks and - and look forward, Poison, your battle lies ahead of you. 

And how was he supposed to win a damn thing without a ray gun to his name and far less knife fight experience than some people he knew? 

No. No, he wasn’t running. He  _ wasn’t running.  _

“Having fun, hair dye?” 

Poison glanced up, his eyelids  _ heavy  _ for some reason, one wrist braced against the wall for support and the other hanging limply by his side. He couldn’t see anyone, not Valen or Benzedrine, so… 

And then Poison squinted, some of the lines disappearing from his line of sight and he saw  _ someone,  _ someone with an evil grin - if a grin could be described as disjointed and creepy and  _ evil -  _ was standing in front of him, a leisurely walk whereas everything around  _ him  _ was going in circles. 

Circles, circles, always circles. 

“Fuck off.” But the words sputtered and died as they came out of his throat, the salty taste of gas and  _ fear  _ choking up the back of his throat like a child at the end of the hallway to his parent’s room,  _ fear was a fucking weakness. _

“Sorry, birdie, but I can’t do that. You know something, don’t you? Got the good doctor to talk?” 

“ _ Fuck off.”  _

There was - is - is? - nothing around him he can use, at least nothing he can see, and Poison’s out-of-body - his limbs weren’t his own and they didn’t feel  _ right,  _ like they weren’t responding to his brain or so sluggishly that he was waking up from his coma all over again, another victim and another martyr and none of it fucking  _ mattered  _ because he  _ wasn’t  _ in the morgue and - and 

_ Oh.  _

That was who this was. 

“Leyline,” Poison snapped out, grinding his teeth together, if only because the sensation of the bone grinding on bone was impossible to ignore, sending shivers down the back of his neck, not quite reaching his spine,  _ focus on that.  _

What the fuck was in that bomb?

“Correct,” she hummed, reaching over and running her thumb down Poison’s nose. He wasn’t a  _ toddler.  _

And he wasn’t going to be treated like one!

“Get - get the fuck away from me!” Destroya, words were hard. Everything was happening so  _ fast  _ but it wasn’t, like time was this murky little bowl of water like the water dripping down from all the leaky pipes and he couldn’t move  _ away  _ from her when her thumb trailed from his nose, down his cheek, down to his neck - and she  _ squeezed.  _

“Don’t have an attitude with me. You’re supposed to be dead, you know?” 

_ Can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe.  _

Poison’s brain finally hurried up and processed the situation, the palms on his windpipe versus the fingernails digging into the soft skin of his neck, slotted into the same damn place his scars already were and - and he couldn’t do anything he couldn’t do anything this time and - and - 

He tried to kick out his feet, but they just weren’t  _ listening,  _ every goddamn command to his stupid fucking body too disjointed to actually work. 

Or maybe it was the learned response from so many times it’d happened before.  _ Stay let and let her hurt you she’ll stop when she needs to just let it happen let it happen let it happen and you won’t get hurt.  _

But that was damn faulty logic and he knew it. 

He  _ knew it,  _ but he couldn’t do anything and she was - she was  _ laughing  _ at him, the corners of her lips lifting up in a fucking  _ smile,  _ another smile and another and another and  _ he couldn’t breathe.  _

“Stop it!” That wasn’t Poison’s voice, too high-pitched and whiny, with a sniffle following, and it sure as hell wasn’t Benzedrine’s voice and - no, no,  _ Valen.  _

Leyline turned her attention to the child, dropping Poison as she went; her heels clacked gracefully across the floor, as though she hadn’t been strangling him half to fucking death beforehand. 

There wasn’t deep-set fear in Valen’s eyes, but tear-tracks lined down the side of his face, away from the grime that had become baked-in as the years went by. He was cradling his wrist to his chest, flinching away from Leyline. “Stop. Just - just  _ stop.”  _

“And who are you to tell me to do anything? A street rat discarded to the ground level?” Leyline was fucking  _ hissing,  _ stepping closer and closer to Valen with no regard for how quickly he was trying to scramble away from her, tripping over something behind his heel. 

Still, Valen held his ground, staring up at her with defiance burning through him - again, in the same way it felt like lightning was running through Poison’s body, shock after shock after shock until the fear became cracking bedrock against his nails. “I’m - I’m not - I’m nothing like you think I am.” 

But he was eleven, and she was a terror, a being out of his control that he couldn’t even fathom all the things that ran through her head. Out of his control, and that meant Valen was  _ horrified.  _

And there was a difference, between horror and terror, and Poison didn’t want Valen to figure that out - he pushed himself off the ground, off the wall that was supporting him; the metal sparked against his palm, but he didn’t bother to pay any attention to it. 

“Back down,” Poison mumbled, voice scratchy in his throat. Whether from his own anger or the side-effects of Leyline’s nails digging into his throat, he didn’t know and he didn’t care. 

He knew she wouldn’t listen, though, nad he wasn’t all that impressive - standing next to her at his full height, she still towered over him in her heels, but the weight of her gaze was enough for Poison to  _ light up.  _

The difference between someone normal and something like Poison was that his rage wasn’t what lit up. He wasn’t blowing up, out of anger or happiness or any fucking emotion. 

It was pure  _ light.  _

Somewhat like the flash bomb that had been thrown toward them - which he was starting to expect had some sort of numbing agent in it, or gas or  _ something -  _ “I said  _ back down!” _

He wasn’t in control. His fingertips  _ burned,  _ electricity crackling between his fingers at what might have been the speed of light, or it felt like it at least, everything narrowing down to what was in his central vision while everything else faded out into its own vignette. 

_ Leyline.  _ Leyline was in his central vision, purple-painted lips lifted up in a snarl.  _ good. _

Poison hoped she was afraid. 

He hoped and he hoped so much that he could feel his heart beating, all the electricity from the lights around them pushing into the electrical circuit he was creating until it was all pitch black save for him, save for him staring down at the woman that put him in a morgue. 

The woman that called Valen a street rat and put a man in a padded cell without any prior knowledge. 

And sure, it wasn’t like Benzedrine was Poison’s favorite person either, but he wasn’t meant to be in a cell.  _ No one  _ was. 

“Leyline,” he said once again, walking toward her and ignoring the crackling underneath the balls of his feet from the constant  _ up, down, up, down, a  _ motion that came with ambling toward her. His voice crackled, too, like there was so much  _ electricity  _ flowing through him that he didn’t know what to do with it. “Didn’t I tell you it would be better to back off? Didn’t he tell you to  _ stop?  _ What about that do you not  _ understand?”  _

For a moment, everything stopped. 

The light stopped burning him up from the inside out, his voice stopped crackling, his hands stopped tingling with hundreds of Jules of electricity pushing through him. 

And Poison inhaled, and it all started up again, and Leyline was standing there, the only one who didn’t know what electricity could really do to a human body. 

She said nothing, refusing to cower, refusing to admit that she was  _ wrong  _ and that she fucking  _ hurt  _ a  _ child  _ and - and - Destroya! How the fuck was Poison supposed to keep it under  _ control?  _

Damn her. Damn her and damn the way the  _ last  _ time he’d given someone - given someone the treatment they  _ deserved  _ to save his fucking family he ended up in a coma and  _ she was the reason he didn’t know where his family was now.  _

“Screw you,” was all she said, still,  _ still  _ standing her ground in those stupid fucking heels of hers. 

And she just had to open her mouth again, walking toward him with intent behind every step, venom burning up in her throat like a mother scolding her child. “Screw you. You’re an overgrown child lost in the world who can’t even  _ hurt  _ without fear eating away at them. You were supposed to be dead and you think a  _ light show  _ will scare me,  _ Poison? _

“The worst thing you’ve done in your life is some firefight out in the wasteland you call home. DO you think that carries any weight, here, in your neon jacket? Do you think burning up from the inside out will help you? Stand down, Party Poison. You won’t win regardless.” 

Electricity crackled at his fingertips, the opposite of fucking everything she was trying to tell him,  _ power  _ that no one could take from him. 

But it could be taken from him. It  _ had  _ been taken from him. She’d taken it from him before. 

_ The morgue. Cold, dreary, the stench of death everywhere, unavoidable. And Poison, lying in a hospital cot like one of the bodies, unable to do anything, unable to move from the atrophy to his muscles, the device on his chest keeping him from doing anything to help himself.  _

The device. The device had taken his electricity from him like it was fucking nothing. Like he was expendable. 

And… and maybe he was. 

But if he was expendable, what did that make Benzedrine? The Underground leader subject to BLI experimentation. What did that make Valen, a child with no one else to look out for him? 

Who, other than him, would  _ care  _ if Valen was another body in the morgue? 

He couldn’t… He couldn’t risk that. 

Poison let the electricity fall from his body, the light back in its rightful place while Poison stared down, hard, at the ground, at Valen’s dirty, scoffed and worn boots. He wasn’t moving. 

No, he was staring at Poison, wide-eyed and startled, no doubt wondering why Poison was letting Leyline tell him what to do like that, all black-and-white in Valen’s eyes. 

He was a kid. He deserved to feel like there was nothing more than right and wrong, no gray area, nothing other than the heroes and the villains, and this, to Valen, was the hero being defeated by the villain. 

Leyline smiled once again, the grin painting her face far more sinister than anything else she could’ve done. “Good boy.” 

“Let him  _ go,  _ then.” Poison refused to snarl her name once again, crossing his arms and letting his nails dig into the leather of his jacket, worn and beaten in by years of use, years of far worse than Leyline could throw at him. 

Then again, he had to admit, waking up in a morgue, rotting away like another corpse was one hell of a startling experience. He’d have to add it to the list. 

Leyline nodded starkly, flicking her painted index finger over at Valen. 

Valen didn’t acknowledge her, still staring at Poison. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for Poison to be the hero of the story and rescue them all. 

And - and Poison didn’t want to leave him alone, didn’t want him to leave him alone wandering the vents like a lost puppy, wondering where he was going next. What his purpose would be next. 

He didn’t have a choice, though. 

Poison sighed, nodding his head; permission and encouragement to follow Leyline’s order, and he tried for a smile as Valen scrambled off the floor, onto his feet, darting his eyes between Poison and the other end of the hall. 

“Go,” Poison whispered. Valen didn’t return the smile. 

Valen shook his head before running off, another ghost in the halls. Poison couldn’t be sure he was really there; Valen had long-since learned the art of disappearing into the Underground, becoming part of what made it so mysterious. 

Leyline wouldn’t find him in his domain, but it wasn’t Poison’s domain, and here, here he was powerless. 

“Now, Poison,” she tsked, glancing him up and down as though he was a feral fucking coyote who somehow tracked mud all over the house. Did he  _ look  _ like a fucking housepet? Something to  _ play around  _ with? “Are you going to make this easy and come willingly, or do you need another flashbang to get you more… agreeable?” 

“I’m not a fucking servant. Talk to me like a person and then we’ll see.” Maybe he was only saying it because there was nothing else he could do. 

Technically, he could lash out again. He could fight. But his head was still swimming and he wasn’t thinking straight and he wasn’t sure whether she had that device on her or not - and Benzedrine, too, Benzedrine was a problem. 

If the Underground wasn’t as secret as they thought, then Benzedrine was an asset that Leyline couldn’t get her hands on again - Benzedrine was a wildcard, like Kobra in that aspect, and he couldn’t be trusted under pressure. 

So Poison would stay with him. 

He sighed, his shoulder falling. “I’ll go with you. But I’m staying  _ conscious  _ through his whole damn thing.” 

“What, did you not enjoy your little coma, Party Poison?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was one HELL of a chapter! nobody communicates! no one makes good decisions! this is a running theme! thoughts?? :0


	8. hand in mine, into your icy blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party Poison's got more to worry about than an eccentric doctor and a child with a disappearing act. It's a little hard to focus on that, though, when he doesn't know where it leaves him. Other than in a cell, of course. 
> 
> Fun Ghoul's starting to think his mother has it out for him. Unfortunately, she has a point. Sometimes.

Poison was getting fucking tired of waking up in places he didn’t recognize, and he was a little fucking tired of being put there by the same woman that hated him - or the one that he loathed, probably more than the inverse. 

Fortunately for him, his theory had been proved right when she stuffed him and Benzedrine in the same eight-by-eight cell together; the sharpest hint of color was Benzedrine’s lab coat and the grime on the walls. 

And Poison’s jacket, of course, but his jacket didn’t count - it was just as much a part of him as the grimy hair on his head.

Destroya, he’d been in a coma for two-and-a-half weeks, and then crawled through the vents for Witch-knew-how-long, and  _ then  _ ended up on the grimy ground floor of the Underground, and he hadn’t  _ showered  _ throughout any of this. 

Not even a hose bath. He was  _ disgusting. _

And maybe he’d taken to picking off the dirt from his skin, in brash, angry strokes, his nail starting to come off from his fingers from scratching at his arm so hard. 

“Stop that,” Benzedrine mumbled easily, poking at the Rubix cube that had been given back to him.

They’d been put together, but in a different cell than the one Benzedrine had been in. Luckily for Poison’s sanity, this one seemed less dirty. Had less ghosts, less history, less for him to get angry at. 

His anger was starting to be a problem, he supposed, considering it damn near got a child killed. Maybe that was how Kobra felt all the time. 

No, Poison scoffed to himself, that  _ was  _ how Kobra felt.  _ Kobra  _ was the one who was angry and brash, wanted to  _ fight  _ whenever he could; he was the one that would pick at his skin until it was angry and bleeding in the bathroom, in the dark, wondering what happened to his life. 

The few times Poison had found him like that, it was terrifying. He’d never asked why Kobra did it. Kobra never volunteered an explanation save for sitting quietly on the bathroom counter and letting Poison or Jet or whoever patch him up. 

Poison understood it now, a little. The dirt on his skin, crawling around like ants, making him try to shake out of his skin just to stay  _ clean.  _

It was a dirty that even the desert couldn’t match; it wasn’t sand and dust painting your skin the same color as the plants through a sand storm, no - it was grime and cobwebs and twenty-year-old water scarring itself across his skin like nothing could ever get it off. 

Benzedrine didn’t seem to mind, though, fiddling with his solved Rubix cube like a lifeline or a hologram or something. 

Knowing Benzedrine, he wouldn’t be surprised if the cube actually  _ was  _ something high-tech and dangerous, and Benzedrine himself simply chose to keep that information away from Poison. 

Actually, that brought up a good point… “Hey, Doc, why haven’t you used your weird blood-bendin’ thing to get us out of here yet?” 

Benzedrine sighed, waving at nothing before he  _ ever  _ deemed it necessary to look at Poison. “I can’t. Don’t know why, but I can’t. I tried. Don’t you think I would  _ be  _ here if I could?” 

“I suppose not.” Destroya, it took far more effort than Poison was willing to admit to keep from snapping at the doctor - there was something about his tone, about the way he talked to everyone else that made it inherently tempting to knock his lights out and ask where his manners were. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you know this shit?” 

“I specialize in healing and chemistry, Poison; not technology and sure as hell not metagenes. They’re interesting, sure, but far too delicate. Brain surgery is something you try to stay away from in an unequipped med-bay with shitty nurses that don’t know the difference between medical terminology and slang.” 

Poison would’ve thrown him into the wall if he had any upper body strength. “I don’t think you know the difference either, Benzedrine. You’re named after a fucking anxiety drug.” 

“I’m surprised you know that all.” 

“It’s surprising what you pick up in a City obsessed about medication,” Poison huffed, physically forcing his free hand away from the skin on his arm, relishing in the crinkling of the leather as he pushed his sleeve back down. 

He wasn’t going to pick at his skin until it bled. He wasn’t going to have a breakdown in a  _ cell  _ with  _ Doctor Benzedrine,  _ of all people. 

He was trying to gather information, not have a crisis; though he didn’t know how much those two could be interconnected, knowing him - and knowing a bit about the good doctor. 

And  _ Valen.  _

Valen was left alone, again, and while they hadn’t known each other for long, Poison owed him a life debt, and he was pretty damn sure he was the reason the kid’s wrist was broken or sprained. 

Valen trusted him, and he broke that trust. He led Valen straight into the heart of danger and didn’t let the kid speak when he should have, didn’t trust him when he needed to. 

Because of that, Valen was all alone again, no doubt wandering around the vents, without any treatment for his wrist, without anyone else to rely on. Because Poison was an  _ idiot.  _

Destroya, they really needed to find a way out of this fucking cell before he went insane. 

“Have you tried your electrokinesis yet?” Benzedrine asked, looking at Poison with that same tilted-head curiosity, more like a kitten than a mad scientist. 

Well, now Poison was thinking about a kitten in a lab coat. Fucking great. 

Poison shook his head, glancing at his palms. His gloves were nowhere to be found - hadn’t been there when he woke up, either - so they were dirty, grit stuck under his nails and so much discoloration that the lines on his palms shined brighter than anything else. 

And, of course, they were rough to the stuck, his skin pushing and pulling and trying to protect itself from his stupid decision-making skills. 

Poison swallowed, closing his eyes - reaching out for what had always been a steady thrum next to his own heartbeat, beating slower,  _ pulsing,  _ but always there, a companion in the dark. 

It wasn’t, it wasn’t there. 

_ It wasn’t there.  _

Poison’s eyes snapped open, glancing from every white, padded tile to the metal wall, to the locked door, to Benzedrine. 

_ It wasn’t there. His electricity was gone again. _

“Where’s the device?” No, no, his voice didn’t shake, it  _ didn’t, it didn’t shake.  _

It couldn’t. He was awake now. He wasn’t in a morgue. He wasn’t on Death’s doorstep, another willing victim, rotting until only his skeleton was left for the Witch to take to the Gardens. 

_ He wasn’t dying.  _ Get a fucking hold of yourself Poison, slow your breathing; you’re a revolutionist. Act like it. 

Poison swallowed again, gritting his teeth at the end of the action; his fists ached when he clenched them into fists, but he didn’t know what else to do. 

Benzedrine was, as always, tinkering with his Rubix cube. “What device?”

“There’s - there’s a device! It’s here somewhere! It - it dampens our powers, doesn’t it? That’s why you can’t blood-bend and my - my electricity -” 

“Electrokinesis.” 

“ _ My electricity  _ is gone. Because there’s a device here  _ taking  _ it.” 

Instead of being concerned, or even expressing mild confusion, Benzedrine simply looked him in the eye with  _ bewilderment.  _ And not the good, appropriate for the situation kind. “A device that dampens meta powers?  _ Fascinating!  _ Have you ever had any encounter with this device before?” 

“When I woke up, but beyond that, I was in a little fucking rush to  _ leave.”  _

Poison volunteered no further information, and from the grim expression planted on his face, Benzedrine saw fit to stop asking questions - though it was blazonly written across his face that he had thousands more to ask. 

Poison just - he just needed the time to think. He was powerless - literally, not metaphorically, and stuck with a traitor. Someone forced to be a traitor, but a traitor nonetheless, and they didn’t know how he was experimented on, or what would trigger it again. 

That meant he was operating blind, without any true allies, and with an obvious  _ enemy.  _ The three things he needed, and he only had one of them - Poison would work with one. 

He needed time to plan. Really, truly, he needed the time to plan. 

But, of course, he didn’t get the chance, because suddenly Benzedrine perked up - like a dog when their owner came home -, glancing around the room like something new had been put there since the last time he’d bothered to look up. 

“What is it?” Poison asked, suddenly feeling stupid, and far more blind than the metaphorical he was talking about. Did Benzedrine think of something? Find the device? 

He hated operating blind!

Benzedrine lifted his hand, a  _ shush  _ if Poison had ever seen it before, glancing at the ceiling, again and again like the padded tiles were going to fucking move or something. 

“What the -” 

“Shush!”

Poison shut his mouth with a hiss, crossing his arms and standing up - an old habit from when they first got out to the Zones and Kobra’s paranoia would keep him up at all hours of the night, so Poison and Ghoul would sit and take watch together, jumping at the slightest of sounds. 

Benzedrine kept glancing around, jumping to his feet - hitting the padded tile with his fist, the  _ worst  _ punch Poison had ever seen in his life. 

He did that twice, and then nothing, standing there stock-still; even the doctor’s lab coat stilled, the tension a solid barrier between the killjoy and the doctor. 

Then another time, this time kicking the tile underneath the one previous. 

Again and again and again. 

He’d lost his fucking mind. The doctor had lost his mind. 

“Can I talk now?” Poison scoffed, blowing faded red hair out of his face - his ends were split, the dye was fading, and he needed to cut it. 

Everything about him was slowly fading without the life of the desert, slowly becoming more and more in tune with the Underground; another washed-out wannabe. Poison didn’t  _ want  _ that. He needed out of here!

When the doctor didn’t shush him again, Poison took it as permission to speak - as though he needed it - and gestured wildly out at nothing. “What the hell are you doing, Doc? Just - fucking kicking things? You’re going to break your wrist!”

_ Like Valen  _ hung heavily in the air, though Poison couldn’t say  _ in the air between them.  _ Benzedrine lacked context, and he likely didn’t understand what Poison was implying. That made it easier, Poison supposed, because then that would cut down the passive aggression. 

Didn’t mean he wasn’t frustrated about it, though. 

“I’m doing something, can’t you see?” 

What he was  _ doing  _ was driving Poison up the wall, but he let the doctor continue in peace - but his relentless energy became  _ Poison’s  _ restless energy, pacing around on his side of the cell, this way and that and back around. 

It was pointless, but the constant motion kept him from glancing at benzedrine, and that was something he could appreciate. If he was Kobra, he’d punch the walls until his knuckles were bloody and aching. 

If he were Ghoul, he’d sit down and meditate, calm the chaotic energy pulsing inside him like a bomb - something Ghoul had learned to do after he set more than one bonfire. 

And if he were Jet, he’d probably pace harder until he found a way out of it, but he couldn’t even do that, could he? 

He was no one other than himself, though, and he’d go down by himself. Unfortunately for him, it was rather impossible to be as edgy as he was attempting with the doctor acting like little more than a madman next to him. 

Eventually, Poison huffed, slamming his own fist into the wall next to him - rather grateful for the padded white cushion that met him, rather than the harsh twist of concrete on his knuckles -, glaring down at Benzedrine. “What the hell are you doing? You’d make a shitty fucking roommate, you know?” 

“It’s not like you’re much better,” Benzedrine mumbled, but there was  _ hesitation  _ in it, and that was all Poison needed. 

“I want to know what’s going on since you’re the reason I’m here. I tried to  _ rescue you,  _ and you got me stuck here!”

“That’s just guilt-tripping, Poison, are we five?” 

“You are!”

His voice cracked on the sentence, no doubt rejecting the  _ petty  _ notion - like there was anything behind it other than pointless heat and flashing nerves. 

He was  _ stuck  _ in a  _ cell  _ with Dr. Benzedrine, didn’t have his powers, didn’t know where Valen was, didn’t know if his crew was even  _ alive,  _ and Leyline hadn’t even had to fight him. In fact, if Valen hadn’t distracted her, she would’ve choked him to death. 

What made her decide he was worth it? 

And if he figured that out, he could weaponize it, but Poison sighed, running a tired palm along his face and sliding down the side of the wall - it wasn’t right. Every  _ single time,  _ all he thought about was that he could weaponize what other people needed. 

So far, that had gotten him into a coma, a morgue, and now, a cell. It wasn’t  _ working,  _ but what else was he supposed to try? 

The only gods he prayed to were selfish, watching him swim up for air only to push him back into the freezing water with a flick of their finger. 

What was he supposed to do? Benze was no help, and - and he didn’t have any  _ support  _ other than that. No quick wit for hidden weapons, no  _ powers,  _ nothing that could  _ save him. _

“Stop pouting,” Benze huffed from the other side of the cell, glancing at the tile with that same confused expression - enough so that it took Poison a moment to figure out Benze was talking to him, and even then, confused as to whether the doctor was talking to the wall or not. It seemed in-character. 

“Now, get off your ass,” Benze continued, giving no more than a glance over to the bird Poison was throwing his way. Still, he followed directions - the leader of the Zones, of the  _ revolution,  _ rising to his feet because someone else told him to. Ironic, wasn’t it? 

“What the hell do you want me to do, Benzedrine?” Maybe the allure of Benze’s name was that he was able to  _ snap  _ it, something breaking in his throat in the rage of emotions he didn’t fully understand. 

Because, much like Kobra, his first thought was to get rid of emotions, to throw them in the back of his mind where Hell roamed and no bare thoughts roamed the lawless land. And that wasn’t - that wasn’t how it was supposed to work, he wasn’t supposed to  _ make  _ the cage around himself.

What was he feeling? He didn’t know, check back in 5-10 business days!

It was infuriating! 

“I want you,” Benze said slowly, leaning forward despite Poison’s obvious height over the man, “To stand there and look confused. Got it?”

Oh, not like he wasn’t doing that already! 

Nevertheless, Poison scowled, crossing his arms and throwing his hip out to the side - the same stance he’d probably use at a Mad Gear concert or something, but he needed,  _ needed  _ something that felt familiar, even if out of place and out-of-context. 

Something. It was something. Something was a starting point. 

“What the fuck?”

“Just wait!”

So, Poison waited. He waited, and waited, and started counting Mississippi’s in his head - briefly thinking back to the debate he and Jet had about them, about if Mississippi used to be a real place or if it was just made up for the purpose of counting seconds. 

_ Mississippi was a ridiculous thing to name a real state,  _ Poison had said, a scoff on his lips. He thought it was made for the song and the song along. 

_ Mississippi was a state, dumbass,  _ Jet had said, that fond smile written plainly across their face, trying to show Poison an old Civics textbook or something, that -  _ apparently -  _ had a map in it. 

Destroya, it  _ ached,  _ how much he missed them all. And all he could do was stand in confusion because  _ someone else told him to.  _

Who was he, anymore? 

Without a crew, without his own identity, without the ‘Am, without  _ anything  _ that marked him as himself save for some cheap hair dye and a jacket so dirty it was starting to look more gray than blue? Was  _ that  _ the only thing letting him keep his name? 

Before Poison could think about what he would do if he never got out of this stupid fucking cell unless it was on someone else’s whim, something  _ hit him in the head.  _

Poison jumped out of the way, already starting to shout “Hey!” - but a hand clamped over his mouth before the syllables fully formed, and he bit down on Benzedrine’s hand, glancing around like a feral animal before his eyes landed on something  _ right  _ where he’d been standing. 

“What was that for?” Poison hissed, rubbing at the spot where his head ached, cursing the - the  _ envelope  _ to hell and back. “Fuck’s this, Benzedrine?” 

“Our way out of here, if you don’t alert the guards,” Benzedrine said, stiff and unyielding before he nodded decisively at Poison, as though deciding something in his head, and reaching for the envelope on the ground. 

It was nothing special, dirty white paper, nearly as  _ thin  _ as a piece of paper, with no address on it, or anything to identify it by. 

Glancing up, Poison shook his head, the realization dawning on him in a guilty succession - guilty because he didn’t notice it beforehand -. The  _ vents.  _ He’d thought about the vents so often due to having been in them, and when put in a cell, he completely forgot about them. 

How the hell did he pass over the basic idea of  _ breathing  _ when he was thinking about how  _ impossible  _ it was to escape? They needed oxygen to breathe, but there wouldn’t  _ be  _ any if the cell was completely closed off. 

When he looked closer, he could see tiny pinpricks in the small,  _ small  _ section between wall tiles, small enough to be impossible to see to the naked eye. 

Why the hell did Benzedrine  _ hit  _ the door, then? 

Benzedrine grinned at him, the same grin you would  _ expect  _ from a mad scientist locked up in a cell for becoming a traitor to his own patients, running his thumbnail underneath the envelope's unsealed edge. 

It was clumsily done, the envelope uneven and ripped in places like it was… 

Childish. Like it was  _ childishly done,  _ by someone who didn’t have the coordination or the knowledge to properly close an envelope, as a certain twelve-year-old boy Poison knew. 

And, inexplicably,  _ rage  _ licked up the lining of his stomach, up his throat, burning him up from the inside out to where he could -  _ he could feel the electricity.  _

“What the hell are you doing?” There was a  _ growl  _ to it, the part of Poison the desert saw, the revolution with a heart of gold that never knew when he was being played.  _ He was being played.  _

By who? 

By Benze, or by Valen? Valen was too little to be able to do something like that - a clever boy, but not clever enough to meticulously do that, control meetings and opinions and hell, people far above him. 

Benzedrine, though… He’d been locked away, for at least as long as Poison had been here; he was a dangerous doctor, according to popular belief (and his own), and that made sure he didn’t have too much contact with the outside world. 

Except for Valen, who scurried around the vents because it was the only way he could survive in the world that would never wait for him to catch up. Valen had enough reasons to be bitter. 

But bitterness wasn’t a reason to do anything against Poison; Poison was from the desert, one of the few people that hadn’t wronged Valen before. The doctor, on the other hand - his priorities were skewed, never quite the straight line like they were supposed to be.

And if he was being honest, he didn’t know Benze’s intentions, nor his motivations. He’d been  _ locked away -  _ he couldn’t have been playing Poison, right? 

So who  _ was it?  _

It all - it was too  _ murky  _ in clarity for Poison to figure it out, and he swallowed, the anger rushing back down to the bottom of his stomach from where it’s taken root, far, far before he’d ever been in the Underground. 

He focused his gaze again, the lone heartbeat of electricity disappearing in the back of his mind, on the piece of paper now sitting in Benze’s hands. 

It wasn’t… pretty, that was for sure, torn corners on lined notebook paper, a dark ink smear over top of the paper making half of it illegible - and in the middle, nothing decipherable to Poison. 

It was just… doodles. A circle here, a hexagon here with a few lines in it, etc. Absolutely fucking  _ nothing.  _

Unless… Unless he used his fucking  _ brain.  _ It was Valen. Valen had never learned how to read and write, not traditionally, and for a twelve-year-old boy, he was far too paranoid to want to do that, anyway. 

It was  _ code.  _ It was code for a boy that had never learned the “proper” hand-eye coordination and small movements that made up almost all languages, and he grinned, pulling at his face - probably too tight, probably one of the most ridiculous,  _ creepy  _ grins he’d given in a while. 

Benze, for once, didn’t feel like saying anything condescending - and for that, Poison was grateful, looking over the doctor’s shoulder and trying to decipher any of the code. 

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, and he grit his teeth, smile still in place, waiting for Benze to tell him what it was. 

Benze and Valen knew each other, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that the mad scientist himself would be responsible for teaching a child an indecipherable code before he could write his spoken language. 

Luckily, Benze didn’t need a prompt for this one. “I’ll teach it to you if we have the time. Valen says we’ve got more outs than we realize, but he can’t tell us right now.” 

“Where did he even get the notebook paper?” 

“Probably his hide-out,” Benze shrugged, crumbling up the paper before Poison had a chance to get a better look at it - Poison snatched it from him, unfolding it. “Y’know, where he lives. You didn’t think he lived in the vents, did you?” 

“Well…” Yeah, it was probably in his best interest to not answer that; Poison huffed, flattening out the paper against his chest. “What were you going to do with it? We don’t exactly have a trash here!”

“Eat it.” 

“You were going to -? Nevermind, nevermind, please don’t tell me. Why can’t he tell us what our outs are?” 

“Didn’t say. My guess? It’s not safe for him to try hacking the lock again, and he can’t write it out on paper in fear of it being discovered - historically, things have gotten nasty when it comes to espionage, the Underground, and code.” 

Poison didn’t want to know.  _ He didn’t want to know.  _ He wasn’t here for a history lesson and he wasn’t going to get one - he was getting sick of the scenery, anyway. 

Basically, that meant he and Benze were on their own unless Valen found a way to trick the doubtlessly-doubled guard outside, and while he was smart, he wasn’t all too good in a fight. The first thing you learn when you’re on your own is that running is better than fighting. 

As you get older, as you get stronger and physically more intimidating,  _ then  _ fighting becomes like a rite of passage, but when you’re small and tiny and malnourished, running is one of the smartest and only things you can do. No way Valen could out-run all those guards, and something in Poison’s chest lessened when he realized that  _ Valen  _ knew that, too. 

So, they were back to the beginning. 

“Got any bright ideas, doc?” Poison sighed, handing the piece of paper back when Benze reached out for it - instead of eating it, though, he slipped it inside his lab coat, no doubt into a hidden pocket or something. 

Benze sighed, scraping his nails over his forehead - it didn’t come away with any dirt under his nails, thank the Witch, or Poison would’ve sued for, like, emotional distress. Something like that. Suing was a thing, still, wasn’t it? 

Destroya, he was going to start losing it soon, wasn’t he? It was okay. It was okay, it was okay he had to be okay because then he could find a way to escape and if he found a way to escape then everything would go back to normal.

And his first priority would be to find his crew and get the hell out of the Underground, an - and maybe he could take Valen with him, if Valen wanted to go and wanted to be somewhere other than the vents which he, apparently, did not live in. 

It didn’t matter unless he found a way out. 

And he couldn’t do that unless…. Unless…. 

_ The electricity.  _ He’d felt it, earlier, when he was pissed off at Benze, when he was pissed off and buzzing and he was able to… What did he do? What did he do that let the device stop? What did he do that stopped the dampener? 

The only things that happened that were unusual were… He was pissed off, and Benze wasn’t, even though Benze and he were usually at high tempers, ready to strike like fucking snakes or something. 

And he’d been pissed off, sure, but he’d had a low level of anger the entire time, something simmering right under the surface that made it irrelevant. Right?  _ Right? _ It had to be irrelevant if he didn’t know why it happened. 

But it had been there. He’d had his powers. And when he’d calmed down, they were gone again, like he had to be riled up for them to -  _ that’s _ what they did. They overloaded the dampener. The dampener must’ve been tech, then, nothing that ran on its own without a battery or some life force or  _ something  _ to keep it alive, and nothing in the cell had been upgraded since it was built - that much was obvious. What  _ was  _ it? 

It had to be something! It had to be something new, but there were no obvious scuff marks on the walls, nothing that pointed to it being tampered with save for the two prisoners sitting within it… 

One of whom had been a BLI experiment and had admitted it himself. One who didn’t know what was done to him and didn’t know anything beyond that it was something akin to the control chip. 

“Benzedrine,” Poison said evenly, probably the one polite thing he’d said to the doctor since they’d met. “Benzedrine, do you have any new scars?” 

“What? N?” Benze seemed confused, but the kind of confusion that came with not knowing where your pen was, nothing that pointed to what Poison was oh-so afraid of. 

He didn’t know anything, then. 

“Look at your skin. Is there anything new? Does anything hurt? What do you remember from when you were in BLI?”

“I don’t know!”

He was lying, though. Poison knew the doctor enough to predict what he was going to say - and, really, he didn’t know the doctor well enough, but he knew  _ liars  _ and Benze wasn’t the best at hiding it. 

“What happened?” Poison repeated, dropping his voice down, low, gravely, just enough for Benze to startle, tensing, feet planted on the ground like he was ready to bolt. 

That’s all Benze did, wasn’t it? Bolt? Run away from his problems? Poison had enough runaways in his life - and Benze wasn’t going to get out of this when they were in a cell together. Still, no answer came. 

“ _ Benzedrine.”  _

“They did - fucking something, I don’t know! I told you what I know already! The fuck is the interrogation for?” 

There was something about his pudgy face and general mad scientist demeanor that threw Poison off, if only because it didn’t seem right for him to say  _ fuck  _ like that. The guy was a ticking time bomb of different emotions and knowledge, but he was  _ not  _ allowed to say fuck, Poison decided. 

that didn’t answer his question, though. 

“Just tell me, and we’ll go from there. I need to know or else I can’t figure anything out, since apparently, Valen isn’t going to be helping. I thought you said they could hear us if we were too loud.” 

With that, Benze scoffed, pushing his shoulders back to regain some semblance of the dignity he so wished for, straightening out the stained lab coat with a huff and staring straight past Poison - at the door. 

It was getting to him. Being in here, it was getting to Benze, and Benze wasn’t willing to admit it, was he? 

“I - I don’t know, really. I don’t think I have any new scars, but nothing has ached or anything. since I’ve been back in the Underground. Nothing except my wrist, but in my defense, I slammed it against a wall when I was  _ talking  _ with your buddy. He was your buddy, right? He looked your type.” 

“My type as in -?” 

“Killjoy. Don’t get your panties in a twist, Poison.” 

“I will do whatever I damn well please, doctor. So, your wrist hurts, anything different with it? Discoloration, a scar, redness, literally  _ anything? _ ”

Benze went to push his sleeve up, but he stopped at the last second, his piercing gaze matching Poison’s; “Why do you need to know?” 

And Poison’s pride was still beating in his chest, maybe a  _ third  _ heartbeat to add onto everything that already went on in his ribcage. It had taken over in the absence of electricity, and whether that was because his ego was a good substitute could be debated. “Just tell me, Doc. You were  _ so  _ willing to share earlier.” 

“They say I’m a mad scientist for a reason. You, though, you’re inconsistent, a rebel at heart with a wild soul. I don’t know what you  _ want,  _ so I’m not going to  _ help  _ you until intentions can be categorized. Understood?”

It wax… perhaps, one of the few things Benze had said that made perfect sense, loathe as Poison was to admit it with agitation itching under his skin, begging for him to do something, anything, to  _ hit  _ something. 

Yeah, he needed to stop hanging out with Kobra when he got frustrated, Destroya be damned. 

So, with grit teeth and far more underneath the surface, Poison smiled, and said, “Understood,  _ Doc.  _ If you haven’t figured it out with that chemist’s mind of yours, what do you think is the only thing that’s been altered in this place since it was built? What do you think is different save for us?” 

Defensive. Defensive, he was making Benze defensive - from the harsh set to his shoulders to the tight line his lips were pressed in, the doctor was little more than frustrated, and supposedly, rightfully so. “And I wasn’t the one  _ unaware  _ and in a coma for weeks, effectively allowing anything and everything to have happened to you in that time. Where did you wake up, Poison?”

“The Med-Bay,” Poison lied through his teeth, decay reeking through his nose - a reminder, a reminder, a constant reminder. 

Benze tsked, leisurely ambling forward, waving his finger around like it  _ meant  _ something. “No, you didn’t. I would no, because I’m the only damn doctor here and without me, guess what? No patients get treatment beyond what the nurses can provide. And with Leyline,  _ guess what? _ The nurses aren’t  _ in  _ the Med-Bay.” 

“You’ve been locked up for weeks. How would  _ you  _ know?” 

“Because I know how this kind of stuff works. She made a show of marking the most important place in the Underground as her territory, and that essentially means she’s re-located the Med-Bay to her own make-shift location. Without a doctor, she’s screwed.” 

“She could be managing on her own.” But the words themselves didn’t even feel right on his tongue, crooked and sideways and something Poison would never taste again if he had the chance.  _ Hollow,  _ he thought dully. The words felt  _ hollow.  _

Benze caught his eye, something  _ wicked  _ lurking behind the mad doctor’s expression, quickly schooled into that of indifference as he screwed with the hem of his lab coat. “Where did you wake up? I’m not asking again.” 

And what would happen if he told Benze? Maybe he’d finally get some answers on what the hell was going on with the creepiness of the ground level. 

Or maybe he’d be told that he was going crazy and that there wasn’t any death and that wasn’t a morgue and he was being - 

No, no, he wasn’t back in the city. He wasn’t going to be  _ lied  _ to again and - and he was big enough that he could stop that in his tracks if he wanted to. 

Poison’s lips pressed into a thin, tight line, the jacket taut around his shoulders feeling smaller than ever. “The morgue,” he whispered, afraid to speak it to life in the small cell, lest the smell of decay catch up to him even there. Would it? Could it? “I, uh, I woke up in the morgue. Valen found me.” 

“Why the hell was he in the morgue?” 

“I never asked.” 

Benzedrine started swearing to himself, using the names of Lobby deities that Poison had only heard on in passing, and a gratuitous amount of  _ fucking fuck hell, screw this,  _ which all seemed like they’d never be in the doctor’s vocabulary. 

“You should have. He’s - he’s a smart kid, and if I’m gone, and Salem’s gone, there’s someone pulling his strings. He’s smart, but gullible. How could you be so  _ stupid? _ ” 

_ 

_ The world is not yet meant for an apocalypse.  _

Ghoul looked around, tears stinging his eyes, and he can’t remember why - everything around him is the same, but there’s red, there’s a red tint to everything and, for the life of him, he can’t remember why. 

Was there a reason why? 

And why did he feel so cold? 

There was sunlight streaming in from the curtains haphazardly covering WKIL’s dingy windows, and the desert was never a cold place when the sun was out. 

Ghoul yawned, his mouth feeling  _ sticky  _ like he’d been eating syrup straight out of the bottle for a couple of hours, and was just now realizing that there was sound logic behind the idea to  _ not  _ drink syrup.

His clothes weren’t quite right around his shoulders, too tight, trapping him in his vest like it was some straight jacket; like he was trying to fit into his childhood clothes when he didn’t have anything better to wear. 

Huh. 

Ghoul shrugged, trying to roll his shoulder in the tight fabric and succeeding in only making his shoulder ache with a groan, ambling out to the curtains with disjointed, heavy footsteps, learning how to walk all over again. 

_ A woman’s face. Bright, beaming, dark tan skin like him, hands outstretched to him, but her face was blurry. Blurry, fading, gone.  _

Gone. 

He didn’t realize how tightly he was holding his jaw until he had to  _ fight  _ to open it, his teeth grit together so hard they ached when he opened his mouth. 

He knew who that was. He  _ knew  _ who that was, and when he pushed away the curtain with shaking fingers, feet rooted in place, he knew exactly what he would see. 

It wasn’t  _ sunlight  _ streaming in through the cracks and tears in the curtains, but instead  _ lightning,  _ the horizon dark - barely anything more than an inky, fluid blackness, time moving and fading and shifting as he stood within the only constant in the fluidity of time. 

Time was a bitch like that. 

The stickiness in his mouth, at least, had faded, evaporating as quickly as he thought about it - the only thing illuminating the horizon’s motion was a lightning storm, burning around the radio station with a vengeance, unable to punish him for being somewhere he didn’t belong. 

“You didn’t tell me it was time for another visit,” Ghoul murmured, watching the red lightning strike scorch marks into the ground. 

It was far less terrifying than what was behind him. 

She wasn’t terrifying, really, not when you knew her, but there would always be an air of fear and awe around her, the personification of everything the Zones thought of her. 

She hummed, a sound filled with hundreds of years of experience and far longer suffering than he would ever know. “You did not heed my warning, child.” 

“Don’t call me that.” He knew she had a right to, technically. The Killjoys were the children of the Zones, but it was - it was more  _ personal  _ for him and she  _ knew that  _ and she needed to stop before anything bad happened. 

Like she ever did. 

The Phoenix Witch nodded behind him; he couldn’t see it, but he could feel the fabric of reality shifting behind him, an acute awareness of such things even though he had no right to know. 

Try as he might, his blood would always affect him someway, some _ how,  _ and this was one of those stupid fucking ways. 

“You did not heed my warning,” she repeated, instead of commenting on his emotions, the thoughts that she could read without any effort at all. In fact, it probably took  _ more  _ of an effort to keep from reading him. “You have not yet fixed the problem you’ve created.” 

“I didn’t  _ create  _ any damn thing!”

Fuck, fuck, he needed to learn how to watch his tongue, but he had never been a good son and he didn’t know how to keep the bitterness out of his voice, how to keep the silver out of his tongue, cracking, cracking, cracking apart at the edges, like he  _ always  _ did when he spoke to her. 

She liked to say that his emotions affected everything he did or saw in the dreamscape they were in - liked to say that if his emotions were making him fall apart in reality, then he would truly start falling apart. 

And  _ anger  _ can only keep him together for so long. 

“Calm yourself,” the Witch said, placing a gentle claw on his shoulder - not human, not bird, but something else, fashioned into the remnants of what used to be human, what used to be comforting. 

He didn’t know what she looked like underneath the feathered mask she wore. He didn’t want to know. 

He was afraid of what he’d see. 

That didn’t bother her, of course, and she didn’t pretend it did; she was the one holding him together, now, his tongue collapsed into dust in his jaw. “You spend your time wondering on trivial mortal things when far more is at stake than three in-sync heartbeats. You go back to the home you abandoned worrying for  _ those  _ who abandoned you, and you do not find a new mission. It’s time to find a new mission.” 

_ No.  _

Ghoul wasn’t abandoned. They didn’t - they didn’t abandon him and he didn’t abandon them, and - and they were just searching, that was all.  _ That was all. _

__ His anger burned, it had always and would always burn, the backs of his eyelids glowing, glowing the same ice blue that met him in the mirror whenever he dared look into one - burned, and burned his tongue back into place, twisted and silver and jaded once again. 

Much like him, he supposed. 

“My  _ mission  _ has nothing to do with you! I didn’t - I didn’t  _ cause  _ anything and they didn’t abandon me!” 

He didn’t move, but the Witch did, her bandaged claw falling off his shoulder in what might have been disappointment if he’d ever assumed she was still capable of human emotions. She’d given them up a long time ago. 

They weren’t the only thing she gave up. 

Instead, she said nothing for a long while, waving her claw through the air and it  _ rippled,  _ WKIL fading into the background as he was met with three different scenes, side-by-side. 

Poison, sitting on the floor of  _ somewhere, awake  _ \- Ghoul’s heart stuttered, breath caught in his throat, though he would never admit to the way he was just staring, even as Poison slammed his head back into the padded tile, unaware of whether it was from genuine concern or boredom. 

He didn’t care what the reason was. Poison was awake! Poison was awake, and… And he was sitting next to Benzedrine? 

Before he could ask about it, ask for the story that he would never get, even when he asked, the AWitch waved the image away, forcing him to pay attention to the next image, to the next image where Jet sat, their head in their hands as their stared out at nothing that Ghoul could see.

It was dim, dark, and they were sitting alone, no doubt still in the Underground with all the rock hanging around them like a halo of death. Their usually vibrant purple curls were starting to dim, hanging limply around their shoulders like they had lost their path

Then again, maybe they had/. Their crew was divided, manipulated into different corners, no knowledge of the other. 

Individual decisions and an individual hell on fourteen different scales stared Ghoul in the face, and he pretended that all he could see was what the Witch was putting in front of his face. 

Again, the Witch pointed him in the direction of a different image, the other one fading into the background, murky, like a river that hadn't been cleaned in a century. The last image was of Kobra, the same one Ghoul butt heads with more often than not. 

They’d made their truce, but it hadn’t seemed to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. Did it really matter? 

Kobra was sitting against his bike, 27 glimmering in what was no doubt the desert sun, his jacket hanging around his shoulders, though his arms weren’t in the sleeves. He looked exhausted, about to pass out, but there was nothing more to his usual pallor appearance that made Ghoul think he was injured. 

In fact, there was someone sitting next to him, the same person that Ghoul could  _ feel  _ his palms heating up as he thought about, the burning temperature a constant as he grit his teeth. 

_ Mr. Sandman.  _

It wasn’t that Sandman was a bad guy. He was decent, really, but he had a long history of leaving when things got difficult and with Kobra, things were always difficult. 

When Ghoul squinted at Kobra, rather than Sandman, he could see the faintest glimmer of Kobra's appearance, like he was flickering. 

_ Fuck.  _

He never had control of his powers when he was frustrated or angry or when too many emotions were overwhelming him - and when that happened, much like ghoul’s tongue disintegrating in the dreamscape, he began fading, fading into the background, sinking into the shadows he oh-so-adored when nothing more than the earth itself was keeping him up. 

If he didn't have any of the outlets he would usually go to, then there was nothing stopping Kobra from just disappearing altogether, to that Hell he went when he teleported. 

No, no, that wasn’t good… 

The Witch let him linger there, smug satisfaction washing over her - sure, he couldn’t see her face, but much like her, he had a far better gauge of emotion in the dreamscape than he did in reality. 

Something that came with the territory of being her son, he supposed. 

“Where the hell is he?” He had to keep his tone even and firm. Or else she would  _ know.  _

He had enough sway in his own damn head that he could keep her out if he wanted, but not for long, and therefore he needed to square the emotions that showed - and the ones in his chest. Needed to lock them behind a chest buried so far in his heart that only one person would be able to unlock them, and that person wasn’t present in their Unreality. 

“Which one of them?” The Witch asked, gesturing vaguely at the, now, two bubbles, each murky, hiding anything inside them that might help Ghoul figure out where the hell the rest of his crew was. “Because I told you. They abandoned you, that much is not a lie, and you must believe it is for the better. You  _ must  _ prevent what is to come. The strings of fate are being toyed with, and your lot do not understand the power you hold.” 

“Your  _ lot?” _ Even to his own ears, his voice was weak, a cry from a child if anything - maybe he’d stomp his foot to make the scene even more entertaining, as his arms were already crossed, even so that his nails were digging crescent moons into his skin, bad enough that he was certain there’d be blood when he pulled his palms away. “Your  _ lot?  _ Do you - do you understand what you do? You - you blame us for the apocalypse, for your - for your  _ leaving,  _ and then you say that we have to fix it for you?!”

The Witch frowned, her claws coming to rest by her chest like she didn’t know what to do with them, like she didn’t know how to deal with the situation. And she didn’t. She was more goddess than human, now, and how the hell would she know what to say to the child she  _ abandoned,  _ for a goddamn suicide mission? “This is not about personal emotions or relations, Fun Ghoul.” 

“Funny you only say my name when you say that, though, because if I remember right, I’m the only one you’ve fucking told. What is it - does the Underground keep you from your full power? Am I the only one that’ll listen? What about - what about my fucking  _ sister?  _ Because if - if I recall, she hates you far less than I do! Go bother her with the apocalypse!”

“Your sister has no bearing on your role in the end of the Zones.” 

“And  _ I  _ have no business being a part of anything other than what I decide,  _ Phoenix Witch.  _ They didn’t abandon me. They  _ didn’t.  _ You - you may not know what the hell loyalty is anymore, but that doesn’t mean I _ don’t,  _ and I don’t give a shit about anything  _ you’re  _ telling me. You don’t get to just _ do this.  _ I’m not a five-year-old with a fucking slit in his face anymore.” 

For once, the Witch was silent, in both her words and her mood, and Ghoul grit his teeth, keeping the inferno in his ribcage at bay. 

This was his dreamscape.

He could burn it all down and nothing would come of it. Maybe her feathers would burn. Maybe she would realize that her deity status didn’t make her anything more than a shitty mother and an absentee one at that. 

Maybe she would realize that he didn’t care anymore. Right? He didn’t, right? 

While his back was turned to her, staring out at the lightning storm outside, even more electrified now that he’d had his outburst, he could  _ feel  _ her disappear, leaving him in peace.  _ For now.  _

And only when he had to pry his hands off his arms did he realize there were tears streaming down his face, scorch marks on the floors where they dropped, and burn marks marring the skin on his face. 

It wasn’t like he’d ever been perfect, anyway. 

His shirt was burned, too, where his hand was, but it wasn’t burned  _ through,  _ and that’s what mattered, he supposed. His clothes had, at the least, loosened up since he’d first started dreaming. 

Dreams were  _ hell  _ when your mother was a fucking deity who only wanted to talk to you when she needed you to do something. Newsie could deal with that shit, because he hadn’t wanted anything to do with her then, and he didn’t want anything to do with her now. 

Ghoul sighed, letting his gaze drop from the view outside to the hands glaring back at him, lines etched into them,  _ burn marks  _ that didn’t belong there in reality. 

That was another fun thing about dreaming, too, he supposed. He could see what he should look like. The tears burning down his face, the burn lines etched into his hands, the lightning storm outside and the inky horizon. 

That was his head. That was what he saw inside and that wouldn’t change. 

Maybe her apocalypse was all in his head. Maybe he had imagined this whole thing, so that he could finally yell at his mother like he wanted to, finally understand what she was feeling when he did so. 

But… but then there was no explanation for the things she’d shown him, of Kobra, of Poison, of Jet. He couldn’t dream those up - he’d figured at least Kobra and Jet had stayed together when they ditched him. 

_ They didn’t ditch him.  _

He needed to wake up. 

Ghoul didn’t know how long he could spend in his own head without wanting to rip it off, without wanting to burn up from the inside out, to burn this place down to the ground and rebuild anew. But some things could never be changed, and it would build itself again, the same way he was seeing it now. The only thing that would change would be WKIL, and it’d be replaced with some other place, somewhere he’d felt safe over the years, and the cycle would repeat. 

That being said, Ghoul took a deep breath, sitting criss-cross on the ground - the uncharacteristically clean version of WKIL’s floor -, with his hands in his lap and his gaze upturned to the ceiling. His way out. 

And it wasn’t traditional, really, because every near-prophetic killjoy knew the best way out of a dream like this was through the gaps of warped perception, but this entire thing wasn’t prophetic, but in his head, and he knew himself well enough that the ceiling would be the best bet. 

Ghoul focused on the area above him, the old drywall ceilings, the way it was cracked in places and the tress’ showed in others - and he focused on his heartbeat, on the temperature of his hands, on the tears scorching down his face. 

On the way that he  _ burned up.  _ It was a concentrated thing, something born out of years of practice and carefully concealed rage that coursed through his veins like a lit match; it was waiting until his hands burned so hot they were blue, the same color as his eyes. 

As the ceiling above him flickered, revealing a pitch blackness, the way to  _ wake up,  _ the one thing that could get him out of the hell of his own creation. 

It was his creation. His creation. His hell. His mother. His apocalypse. But didn’t he owe it to his crew to  _ stop?  _ To wake up and find them and make sure that they weren’t separated again? 

They weren’t made to be on their own. It was something you got well-acquainted with when you were a killjoy, and while Ghoul couldn’t say he’d ever had a problem with the temperature like most, but the desert was harsh, unforgiving, an impossible road to walk alone. 

Ghoul huffed, blowing stray strands of grimy hair away from his eyes; the wind had picked up in the building itself, a wind fueling Ghoul’s flame, speeding up the process. 

He wasn’t burning the dreamscape - no, that would just be stupid, and he’d established that before, but he was burning himself, decaying and decaying at the heat and the flame licked away at his skin. 

It wasn’t painful. He’d gotten used to it by now. 

It was the only way to wake up.  _ It was always the only way.  _

Maybe he was getting sick of only one solution, of destroying himself, destroying his relationships the only way to keep everyone alive, to keep everything running smoothly. He wasn’t going to be the Zones’ martyr. 

He wasn’t going to - 

“Ghoulie?” 

Ghoul startled, falling off the couch hard enough that his forehead collided with the coffee table in front of him, the rest of his body falling awkwardly on the ground - particularly his  _ hip,  _ which fucking hated him, by the way. He groaned, rubbing his forehead. “Thanks.” 

Whoever was talking to him - Pony, from the skates that he saw from his place on the ground - snorted, with a mock wince. “Sorry for startlin’ ya. You were startin’ to scream in your sleep, Raven.” 

It was Ghoul’s turn to wince, pulling himself up, sitting on the ground, and refusing to do more than vaguely pull his knees up to his chest. “Don’t, uh, don’t call me that right now. Fucking dreams again.” 

Pony didn’t know about his mom, and Ghoul was intending on keeping it that way. They didn’t comment for a long while, jumping onto the couch Ghoul had fallen off and leisurely waving their skates around. “Dreams are like that. You ready to get somethin’ pulled together? I think we have an… unlikely visitor that got us all together.” 

“Who’s  _ us?”  _

Pony poked him on the forehead, clearly trying for the nose but, since Ghoul’s face was out of their line of sight, hitting his forehead instead. “Cherri, me, you, D, Newsie, Chimp. The radio crew, together again.” 

“I was never part of your crew.” Maybe he was just bitter because of  _ course  _ he had to yell at his mom and then see his sister immediately fucking after. Of  _ course  _ life had to throw that curveball his way. He sighed, batting Pony’s hand away lazily, not minding their constant, humming presence. “Are they… here yet?” 

“Cher just showed up, News’ had to pick up the DJ herself before she came over, but they’re en route, yeah. Why?” 

“Can’t I just want to know?” Pony knew him better than Ghoul gave them credit for. That wasn’t a bad thing, of course, but… he was still a little shaken from his dream, still seeing the burn lines when he turned his palms toward his eyes. 

“Nah,” Pony said, as Ghoul had expected, jamming their pointer finger in the back of his head, no doubt trying to get him out of his own head. If only they knew. “You’ve always got an agenda. I know you came to crash here ‘cos of whatever happened with the others, but, y’know, reunion bound ‘n all that.” 

Now, that caught Ghoul’s attention, twisting around enough that his already-sore hip protested the movement, but he could see Pony’s bright pink-and-blue, cotton candy hair. “Reunion bound? Is someone - wait, you said I’d like who got us all together? Don’t be dramatic, radio rebel, it’s really not the time.” 

“Witch, someone wake you up on the wrong side of the Zones?” 

“Don’t even get me started. Who is it?” 

“Kobes.” 

And at that, Ghoul froze, gaze fixated on Pony’s relaxed face, no hint of concern in their face because - because they didn’t  _ know  _ what was happening, they didn’t know that Poison was missing, didn’t know about Sandman showing up in his life  _ again,  _ after years, didn’t know about Jet going off on his own and Kobra finally showing how much of a wildcard he was. 

Didn’t know about Leyline and the Underground’s hellish heights or narrow catwalks - or maybe they knew about that, but not in the way that Ghoul did, and Pony would no doubt be able to reassure him, tell him that everything was going to end up okay, and he was going to be okay,  _ he would be okay.  _

And yet, Ghoul’s mouth stayed glued shut, refusing to tell the truth that threatened to escape his throat. 

Pony lightened up, messing with strands of Ghoul’s hair rather than the insistent poking and prodding or even tugging. More metaphorical than anything, but Ghoul’s shoulders slouched, finally as relaxed as he’d been when he fell asleep (which wasn’t much, but still.) “He should be here soon. We have some shampoo if you’d like to clean yourself up, doll.” 

More subconscious than anything, Ghoul nodded, falling out of Pony’s grasp. “I - uh, yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. Haven’t been out of this shirt in a little over three weeks and I might just fall over ghosted soon.” 

Showering was not the same as changing clothes, okay? And his hair did, in fact, need a good wash, though it hadn’t been as long since that had happened. The Underground had one good thing, and it was their showers.

With that, Pony stood, a small smile over their face; fake, if anything, but there and comforting nonetheless. 

The Witch couldn’t bother him here.

“Well, doll,” Pony hummed, properly booping him on the snoot this time, their roller skates gliding seamlessly on the rug, somehow. “I wish you good luck, and I hope you come looking for some perfume, too. And I hope you get things worked out with Kobra.” 

“I never said -” 

“You didn’t have to. You two have never gotten along. S’not that big of a secret.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nothing quite like going back and reading chapter 8 when I'm on chapter 10 and VIBING with the dialogue. anyway ! what does everyone think !


	9. you teenage believers, rallied up against the fence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kobra Kid isn't feeling all too well — his day gets even better when he gets to talk to a rather interesting android with some rather interesting theories.

Destroya be damned, if Kobra had to  _ move  _ at all within the next four hours, he was going to kill a man in cold blood and call it revenge. 

Considering the fact that he was in the completely wrong Zone, he  _ would  _ have to move, and he’d have to move a lot. It didn’t - it wasn’t  _ right.  _ He couldn’t. He couldn’t. 

Sure, he wouldn’t be driving, but the motion itself threatened to spill his stomach out onto the ground, and he was going to be late to the meeting he’d fucking called, wouldn’t he? 

He was already a day late, something like that. However long it had been since the radio call. 

It was the damn desert, in the overbearing, bright sun, and he wasn’t sure whether he was sweating because he was burning up inside or whether it was cold chills, his body pushing and pulling against the dimension he was trapped in. 

_ You’re not supposed to be here,  _ a voice whispered in his head, sinister and demanding and  _ always  _ there when he was exhausted, when his body threatened to give out and put him back into the Hell he’d been born into.  _ You’re not with them. You’re not normal.  _

As though that was anything new. An old taunt, sure, but it wasn’t meant for his mind; it was meant for his body, flickering and transparent across the ground; he could see through his own hand when he had enough energy to squint, when he had enough energy to open his eyes in the first place.

This wasn’t  _ right.  _

He was fine a day ago. He was fine getting his bike and he’d been fine the entire trip there. Yes, he’d been in the Infirmary beforehand, but that hadn’t been for anything like  _ this.  _ His ribs didn’t even hurt, though they were supposed to. 

_ Why did he feel like shit?  _

Something  _ happened.  _ And - and maybe he was just delirious, but it wasn’t that he was in a different goddamn world when he glitched, but seeing it from a different angle, and whenever his body sunk into that dimension, that different  _ angle,  _ everything felt different, colder than the pinpricks he was used to.  _ Something happened.  _

“Are you okay?” Sandman asked, for the third time, crouched down next to Kobra with a wet rag held to his face. Maybe he had a fever or something. 

Honestly, someone could tell Kobra that he was the damn reaper of the dead right now and he’d probably believe them. It wasn’t that every muscle in his body was sore, because they weren’t, and if they were, he’d probably file for emotional distress, but his - his  _ hands, his arms, his legs,  _ they were  _ sore  _ like he’d run a damn marathon or, like, like - 

He couldn’t even think of a good  _ simile.  _

So instead of answering the question, Kobra groaned, rolling his head to the side from the ball he’d curled himself into, too hot and too cold all at once. “Do I - do I  _ look  _ okay, motherfucker?” 

“Did you want me to answer that honestly?” 

“I want you to shut up!” Kobra winced at the volume of his own voice, of the way it made needles stab into the back of his forehead, and he couldn’t even lift his damn hands to make it stop because they were  _ clear  _ and  _ half-faded  _ into what Kobra liked to lovingly call,  _ the Hell dimension.  _

Woo! Great fucking Sunday. 

It better be a Sunday. Kobra  _ hated  _ Sundays, so maybe they were just trying to get back at him. 

“D’ya think it’s… y’know, safe, to get you into the truck?” 

Sandman’s hesitant, and while that’s sweet and all, Kobra wasn’t in the mood to deal with all the tentative-ness or whatever the word was, not with bile rising in his throat and his  _ hands  _ burning as though he was  _ Ghoul  _ or something. “I’ll - I’ll be honest, I think I might just throw up if you do that.” 

Yeah, no, the idea of sitting in the stiflingly hot passenger seat listening to old CDs while sand and rock rolled underfoot wasn’t settling well,  _ anywhere  _ in Kobra’s body. He just - he wanted to be  _ home.  _

Poison always knew what to do when stuff like this happened. But of course, Poison was still hogging all the sleep in his goddamn coma in the one goddamn place they couldn’t find him and - oh, oh, that made Kobra feel  _ worse,  _ okay,  _ okay.  _

“We gotta get down to WKIL,” Sandman frowned, and if Kobra knew any better, he’d think Sandman’s eyes were sparkling with recognition, despite the fact that he was an Underground born through and through. 

He  _ must  _ be out of it. 

Nevertheless, Sandman continued, glancing between Kobra and the truck with furrowed brows, a puzzle that didn’t fit together. And then, eventually, with a mock grin tugging at his lips. “Y’know what? You can sit by your bike. Keep her company so you can, like, not deal with the passenger seat  _ and  _ not vomit on the seats, yeah?” 

“Sounds like a terrible idea,” Kobra mumbled, and it was because he didn’t know if his stomach liked the idea of being in a truck bed any more than it liked the idea of being in the passenger seat, but he supposed Sandman was right - if he  _ really  _ didn’t like it, then he could just push over the side. 

And 27 would be right next to him, anyway, and Destroya only knew that nothing wrong could happen near  _ her.  _ Maybe his spell of bad luck was because he hadn’t given her the touch-up job he’d been intending to do before that fucking  _ firefight  _ that started all of this. 

“- Ra? Kobra?”

Kobra blinked. And blinked again. And then his eyes focused on Sandman waving a hand around his face, and belatedly realized he must be getting off track, though he didn’t know if there  _ was  _ a track, considering his legs felt like jelly in a goddamn ocean. Something like that. 

The ocean and jello seemed like a bad combination. 

Ugh, he didn’t even know what he was saying; he was little help when Sandman picked him up, mostly just trying to keep limbs in working order - and he wasn’t that fond of being carried bridal style, but there was little he could do to protest that. 

Now, see, with 27 in the truck bed, it meant that he could go on either side of the bike - but they couldn’t put the tailgate down, because that might fuck things up and they didn’t need any  _ more  _ disasters, so it was a… journey trying to get a fully grown eighteen-year-old into the truck bed by the arm strength of a nineteen-year-old who probably  _ barely  _ scraped 5’7. 

“What are you laughing at?” Sandman mumbled, half-propping Kobra’s very useless ass on the side of the truck, jumping onto the tire to get better leverage. 

“You’re short.” 

“I will scratch your precious bike until you are  _ begging _ me to stop it and then, and only then,” Sandman hummed, completely straight-faced, moving boxes out of the way of where Kobra would, presumably, be sitting, “Will I grant you the sweet release of relief by splattering gloss all over the bike and leave, and I will make sure you never recover from the trauma.” 

Kobra cackled, despite his lungs angrily yelling at him to stop - from the way they seemed to  _ rattle  _ to the way his heart was leaping through his chest, balancing precariously on the truck and trying his damnedest not to fall. “If you so much as touch my bike with ill-intentions I will make sure you never walk straight again, darling dearest.” 

“Awe, at the pet names stage already? How quaint.” 

While Kobra wasn’t quite sure what the word quaint meant, and he couldn’t say he was all too happy with the way he was getting man-handled into the truck bed, he couldn’t say he detested it, either. 

He felt like shit, sure, and he sure as hell would love if it was Poison with him and not Sandman, but it wasn’t the  _ worst,  _ if he had to admit it. 

Eventually, he ended up sitting criss-cross, with his back against the indent within the bed for the tire, looking lazily up at the sky. 

At the very least, he wasn’t liable to fall out of the truck - his hands and legs had stopped flickering, stopped acting like he was a damn ghost in the making, but at fifty-miles-an-hour with a queasy stomach and guilt settling far back into his chest, he didn’t know if that helped at all. 

He should be with Poison, really. He should still be in the Underground searching for Poison every waking moment until he was found - he should be in the Underground  _ helping  _ Jet find Poison, not - not in the Zones with Sandman. 

He didn’t even know what  _ Ghoul  _ was doing. Sure, he didn’t get along with Ghoul, but a crew was still a crew. 

Try as he might to put it any other way, but he’d run away again, hadn’t he? Ran away from the stress while the going was still good and left everyone else to do whatever the hell they wanted to do, whether they needed his help or not. 

Destroya, talk about being a shitty friend. No fucking wonder he was getting sick - not just in the head, for once, but physically, too. Kobra never should have left the Underground, intentions be damned. 

Maybe that was why he was getting sick. His body knew that he shouldn’t be here, and his mind knew it, too, even if he was trying to ignore it. 

And - and he did feel better, the further they went, closer and closer to WKIL - from Zone Four to Zone Two, where the Station was, far closer to the Underground. 

That wouldn’t really be the solution, he knew, but… It was close enough, for now, nausea edging into the back of his mind, until he finally felt like he could  _ breathe  _ again without vomiting, the wind throwing his hair every direction at the high speed. 

Once he got to WKIL, he’d need the radio gang’s help with finding Poison. If he was out here, he could enlist help, and then maybe the sickness would well and truly go away. 

_ You don’t belong there, either,  _ the voice in his head cackled, the one from earlier, the one that always showed up when he was feeling particularly like shit. Or whenever he was having a breakdown, but his powers and his mental state happened to mirror each other a lot, hate it as he might. 

Kobra laid back, shifting to where his back was flush with the ridges of the truck bed, staring up at the sky now that the wind resistance had lowered significantly. 

_ Just get through the day. Today, the day after, just keep going.  _

Usually, the one to tell him that was Poison, but right now, it was the one thing he had to tell himself, and honestly, Kobra didn’t appreciate the sudden change of tone. His own was bitter, whereas Poison was always optimistic, bright in the way only a revolutionist could be. 

Poison’s anger burned like a falling star, capturing everyone’s attention and directing it. Kobra’s anger burned like a supernova, distant and burning until he destroyed himself, and mantras like this were no exception, bitter and biting until the words stung his skin. 

It would be a long day. 

_ 

“Time to wake up, sleepy-head.” 

Kobra hissed something along the lines of  _ fucking fucker,  _ batting away whoever’s hand was trying to wake him up - until, of course, a round of nausea hit his stomach, forcing his way up his throat, and he scrambled to sit up, half-thrown out of the truck bed on his own accord. 

Kobra’s eyes scrambled around wildly;  _ Sandman, truck, 27, WKIL, sand, sunset,  _ but he didn’t move from his position, waiting for the feeling to ebb away, to slow its mad descent, but it didn’t. 

In fact, all he ended up doing was dry-heaving, his stomach churning with nothing in it to vomit up. 

Half-collapsed along the wall of the truck bed, Sandman gave him a sympathetic smile, tentatively reaching out to rub his gloved thumb along the back of Kobra’s palm. “I gave you a few minutes, didn’t wanna wake you up just yet. Everyone’s - uh, everyone’s inside.” 

_ Great. Right. He had to talk to people.  _

Kobra didn’t bother forcing a smile, not knowing what the state of his teeth would be, and instead wrinkled his nose in distaste, slumping from his then-vigilant posture. Fucking hell. “Do they know anything yet?” 

“Only what you told them. And… uh, what Ghoul told them.” 

“Ghoul?” 

Sandman took one look at Kobra’s raised brow and winced, avoiding eye contact. Like Kobra would be  _ mad  _ or something. Why would he be mad? “Uh, yeah. Ghoul’s here too, apparently. Was crashing on the couch before you called the impromptu meeting.” 

And Kobra… didn’t know how to react.  _ Ghoul. Fun Ghoul. Part of his crew Fun Ghoul. Bomb-maker. Guy Kobra had abandoned when he ran away from all of his problems, as per usual.  _

Maybe it was his own guilt that made this so difficult. 

Sandman cleared his throat, clearly giving Kobra time to say anything if he wanted to. And… and he did, but he didn’t know what he wanted to say, so nothing at all came out of his mouth. “I, uh, I can tell them you’re feeling under the weather if you want. Considering you do look pretty sick.” 

“Oh, I’ll take a day off when I turn green and fall over,” Kobra huffed, trying to awkwardly jump down - which was a little difficult when he struggled to throw his legs over the side anyway, arms shaking with the effort it took to hold his body up. 

Despite the bandages and stuff, maybe his ribs had gotten infected and made this super bad or something. 

It would make sense, though his ribs didn’t ache and they didn’t feel particularly bloated or swollen, nor irritated in the slightest.  _ Fuck.  _ He’d still get it checked out. 

Without a word, and a distant look in his eyes, Sandman offered his hand for Kobra to grip, help him get out on his own accord; his pride wouldn’t let him accept anything more than a hand for support. 

Nevermind that he tripped when he did get to the ground. 

Sandman was careful, careful not to touch Kobra too much, save for his shoulder and upper arm to help him up, and Kobra flashed him a closed-mouth grin, trying to put on the easy confidence he usually had. 

Or usually  _ faked,  _ but the premise was still the same, no? 

They would all be waiting for him. And maybe Ghoul could explain, but he couldn’t fill in all the details. Neither of the two Fabulous Killjoys could answer the most pressing questions: where the other half of their crew were, and what the hell was happening in the Underground. 

Hopefully, Sandman would be able to explain that part. 

Fuck, Kobra might need to sit down, the queasiness coming back into his stomach at full-force, no disregard for how he was supposed to see all of his estranged friends all giving him concerned looks. 

Sandman returned a reassuring smile, letting go of Kobra’s bicep to knock on the metal doorframe of the Station, half-hidden by a sand dune, though their cover certainly wasn’t helped by the truck sitting out front. 

Oops. 

For a moment, Kobra hoped no one would hear the knock. That he could go back to his restless sleep in the truck bed and everything would be  _ fine,  _ because he didn’t - he didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t want to admit that to anyone other than himself. 

So, naturally, someone  _ had  _ to answer near-immediately, before Sandman could even knock a second time; someone with the notorious pink streaks in blonde hair. 

DJ Hot Chimp. 

“Nice to see you kid,” she grinned, looking past Sandman’s shoulder, over to Kobra himself - he knew he most likely looked pale and sickly, but he  _ felt  _ sick as hell, so it was fitting, he supposed. “And, uh, nice to see you too. Still have the gloves, huh?” 

“Part of the look,” Sandman shrugged, tense; Kobra almost had the guts to ask what the history was there. 

But that wasn’t part of his business and he didn’t even know if he could walk twenty-feet on his own, but it was no good idea to get involved in someone else’s past, not right now. 

Nevertheless, Chimp moved to the side, allowing them both to amble into the relatively cramped radio station - that tended to happen when all of them were there. Sandman,  _ Ghoul,  _ Dr. D, Cherri, Chimp, Pony, Newsie, himself. 

Made for one hell of a crowd, and Dr. D’s stacks of vinyl records weren’t all too happy with their bumbling presence. 

And everyone was  _ looking  _ at him - in concern, in confusion, he didn’t know, but they were all - all staring at him and Kobra didn’t know if he could do it. 

He wasn’t meant to be in the spotlight. That was where Poison belonged. That was where Poison lived, and cast the rest of them into shadows, and he used to be okay with that and now he was wishing for it, someone or something to be there so that he could get some peace, time to collect his thoughts and make sure he wouldn’t get caught in another bout of nausea.

“Hi,” Kobra said weakly, waving his hand around in what was supposed to be a greeting, and ended up just being awkward - and knocking his elbow into one of the posters on the walls, some old band named  _ Seether  _ or something like that. “Uh. So you all made it, huh?” 

“Yeah, and it looks like you barely did,” Newsie snickered, her arms crossed - she was never one to beat around the bush, but her appearance alone could tell you that. 

If Kobra had to describe her in as few words as possible, it would be  _ boots and boobs.  _

He used to have a crush on her when he was younger and she was the  _ coolest  _ person in the Zones, but now he knew she was just as much of a disaster as them - and her fishnets still hadn’t recovered from the many, many times she accidentally sprayed a can of spray paint in the wrong direction. 

Regardless, Newsie’s blue-and-black color scheme hadn’t changed from the last time they’d seen each other, and neither had the choppy, shoulder-length blue hair and bangs, or vaguely steampunk goggles resting on her forehead. 

Paired with the thigh-high fifteen-pound black platform boots, she was a force to be reckoned with, no doubt. 

“Yeah,” Kobra mumbled. Damn, he was hoping no one would bring it up - it had to be the first thing out of Newsie’s mouth, then. “Anyways, so I hope you’ve all gotten each other up to date on what’s going on…?” 

“You mean compared the cryptic bullshit you gave us over the radio and Ghoul’s choppy reflections on the same thing?”

“Yeah, that,” Kobra nodded, gesturing vaguely over to Ghoul - who was trying to sink behind everyone, into the wall. His hair was washed, and he was in one of Dr. D’s old shirts, so he must’ve had something going right. “So you got all of it?” 

“That’s not how this works,” Chimp sighed, leaning against the wall, of course, having to be the one cool one in the room - the one with sense, at least, and only then did Kobra look around again and notice that Sandman was trying to hide behind him, too. 

Damn, the same thing, huh? 

Kobra shrugged. “It can work that way if I want it to work that way, and I want it to work that way.” 

“No, it doesn’t -” 

Dr. D cut Newsie off before she could get another word out, blue eyeshadow-covered eyes narrowing into a glare - at Kobra, not D, though Kobra wanted to know what the hell he did wrong to get the treatment. (He could probably name a few things.) “So, to recap, Kid - Poison’s in a coma, Star’s… somewhere, you’re here, Ghoul’s here, Sandy’s here, and you got the gang together why…?” 

For the longest time, Kobra didn’t answer, wondering what, exactly, had been going through his head - and he couldn’t place it. 

It was covered in fog, and he dare not poke at that, perhaps because he didn’t feel like dry-heaving for another five minutes from the lack of contents in his stomach. 

Luckily for him, Sandman took over for him, pushing past Kobra’s shoulder to where he was visible to everyone, though Kobra didn’t pretend he didn’t notice the way the former barely touched him. That felt great on the ego. “We think you can help. And some of you have more experience than others in fields like this, so....” 

“So, what? You thought you could just  _ waltz  _ in and demand help and that we need to give you our time?” Ghoul was scowling, arms crossed much like Newsie, and for a moment, Kobra could see the sibling resemblance - the anger in their expressions matched. 

Damn, was that how he and Poison looked sometimes? Startling. 

Sandman scowled, a look that ought to look unnatural on him - and to Kobra, it did, used to either the easy smile lounging on his face or the callous, unreadable expression from back when they were in the Underground meeting. 

“I didn’t call this meeting, and I’m not calling for your help.” 

“And yet you roped  _ my crew  _ into it well enough, didn’t you?” 

“I didn’t do that!”

Ghoul scoffed, throwing the excuse to whatever Hell he deemed necessary. “Sure you didn’t, but it was your crew leader that attacked  _ your  _ Infirmary, it was  _ your  _ villain that roped  _ us  _ into that run, it was  _ your  _ business that got us all tangled up in this!” 

Sandman’s jaw was tight, scanning over Ghoul to see… something, he didn’t know.  _ There’s history there, too,  _ Kobra thought, silently backing away from the argument before he could get roped into that as well.

“It was  _ your  _ comatose fucking friend that brought you there at all,” Sandman mumbled, the heat draining from his expression drastically - for some fucking reason, when Kobra thought that if anything, he should be getting  _ more  _ pissed off. 

That was how Kobra operated, anyway. 

Ghoul didn’t answer, a glower saying everything he couldn’t, and Sandman quietly continued, his gloved hands balled into a fist. “And I don’t give a shit that you don’t like me, or that you think I’m  _ worse  _ than you because I don’t have a  _ deathwish,  _ so get it through your thick fucking skull that I’m here, and I’ll  _ stay  _ right where I need to be.” 

No one acknowledged that. 

Instead, Pony cut through the tension by skating back behind a stack of records, their bright hair peeking out underneath a Skull Candy helmet - homemade, of course, and probably repurposed from a snowboarding helmet. “So, dolls, how the hell are we planning to help people we can’t locate?” 

They didn’t have the full story. Kobra knew that. 

And he knew he should tell them, but there was something tight in his chest that screamed  _ no, no, you can’t know, you can’t know we fucked up.  _ Or maybe that was just the ball of sickness threatening to reappear, but still, the notion was there and it wouldn’t leave his pounding head. 

Something was  _ wrong!  _

“We can, uh,” Kobra started, furrowing his brows and trying to find the word on the tip of his tongue, unable to figure out whether he just - whether he forgot it or whether he couldn’t force it up his throat. 

_ Fuck. Fuck. Going back to WKIL didn’t help.  _

_ You’re not meant to be here, _ that voice sing-songed, at the same time Kobra’s vision blurred, a TV-sort of static across his peripherals, loud,  _ loud, loud.  _

“Kobra?”

Fuck, fucking hell, why was Chimp’s voice so  _ loud?  _ Loud loud  _ loud,  _ everything was way too loud!

_ You don’t belong here. Don’t you get that now?  _

Something was  _ wrong,  _ not with him, not with his body, not with anything - anything around him - nothing was right,  _ nothing was right,  _ why was nothing right? 

Kobra snapped his eyes open - when had he closed them? - slumped against one of the Station’s walls with a knocked-over stack of CDs next to him, staring straight at Ghoul. “What the hell did you do?” Kobra asked, weak, his voice threatening to go out on him again. “What did you  _ do?”  _

It wasn’t Ghoul’s fault. He knew it wasn’t Ghoul’s fault. 

But it  _ was.  _ Something was wrong, and it was Ghoul’s fault, and he didn’t know how or why, but Kobra knew when to trust his gut - it had kept him alive for eighteen years, and this was no exception. 

Ghoul was glaring at him - or did he look concerned? Did it matter? 

Why the hell did - ? 

Kobra gasped, his free hand flying to his ribs, his  _ ribs,  _ how did he forget about his ribs? They hurt, they - they ached,  _ ached,  _ a burning hole in the center of his chest like his heart itself was melting from all the pressure, and that wasn’t physically possible, but something was - something was  _ wrong  _ and someone needed to fix it. 

Someone needed to fix it  _ now.  _

“He’s - he’s fucking dying over there! What the - Ghoul?!” 

Distantly, everyone’s voices blended together, all the syllables and tones blending into the same wave of sound,  _ loud loud loud.  _

His eyes were screwed shut again, but it made - it helped block out the sound. Hands clapped over his ears to make sure - to make sure that nothing was wrong, nothing was wrong anymore, even though his ribs made him want to curl up into a ball and sleep forever, this would do, this would do,  _ this would do.  _

“Get him help -” 

“What’s going on?” 

“We don’t -” 

“Try picking -” 

Sound faded out. It wasn’t loud anymore. 

It wasn’t that kind of loud anymore, at least. 

It should be loud. Kobra should really be concerned that it wasn’t loud - that he wasn’t able to pick apart voices or that the tension was slowly starting to drain out of his body, that the pain was in the back of his mind rather than the forefront. 

He wasn’t, though, and let it all flow away from him, in the same vein as when something important happened and everything else faded to the background. Fitting, no? 

_ 

Kobra groaned, instinctively reaching for a ray gun by his side. 

Call it a force of habit, and it was, but it was the most important thing to have by his side, and he was sourly interrupted by his arm twinging in protest, swiping right through… Something. 

Kobra hadn’t opened his eyes yet, but he could  _ feel  _ the cold air pass through his arm when he should’ve collided with an object, and waking up wasn’t so hard when fear was pumping through his veins like adrenaline. 

_ Here. He was here.  _ In the real world. 

The colors weren’t inverted and it wasn’t  _ cold  _ like it was when he glitched, it wasn’t cold and hellish and somewhere you never wanted to stay. That didn’t mean he was all in the real world, though, frowning at the way his arm flickered in front of his face. 

Hey, nothing hurt anymore! Not even his ribs, though he vaguely remembered those being one hell of a bitch before he passed. 

Wait, where was he? 

Glancing around, he sure as hell wasn’t at WKIL anymore, though he didn’t know if that was… Shit, if he was flickering when he woke up, did that mean…? 

“Yeah, dipshit, you appeared here. Sorry.” 

“I’m not a dipshit.” 

“Considering you appeared out of nowhere next to  _ my  _ dinner, I think I can call you a dipshit.”

Kobra finally adjusted to the light, squinting at the harsh streetlight raining down on him; he was… Yeah, there was that question again -  _ where was he?  _

And when he pushed himself off the pavement gravel embedded in his palms, glancing to his side, he found a can of PLUS; “Dinner, huh?” 

“Close to it,” the person speaking shrugged, and Kobra glanced over at her, finally - she was nice-looking, a pack of cigarettes tucked into her lap, though she wasn’t trying to hide them, and Kobra instinctively wanted to wince and look away. 

Not because he felt bad for looking at her, or felt like he shouldn’t, but because it reminded him a  _ lot  _ of rather…  _ unstable  _ things he’d done back in the city. 

An android girl, with a mop full of unbrushed blue hair. They were in a back alley of Battery City, most likely the Neon District, and Kobra didn’t even want to know how he’d gone so far when he was in so much pain.

(It wasn’t like he’d ever felt at  _ home  _ in the City, after all.) 

“How did you get here, kid? And who are you?” the android girl asked, raising a brow, black-lined lips twitching in amusement. 

She didn’t seem all too concerned about a killjoy appearing out of nowhere next to her dinner. So, Kobra wasn’t going to be the one to make it a big deal. 

“I’m the Kobra Kid,” Kobra said, but suddenly he felt a hell of a lot more stupid saying it, and he didn’t quite know why - maybe because he was still a little blurry on what the hell had just happened and the android girl was staring at him with that same amusement on her face, making him squirm, though he was sitting cross-legged on the ground with jeans that hadn’t been washed in two weeks. 

Nevertheless, she nodded, decisive, as though she’d thought he would say that. “Nice to meet you, Kid. My name’s Blue.” 

“Original.” 

“Good at keeping lost in the system,” the android girl - Blue - shrugged, lifting her pack of smokes and setting it to the side, out of Kobra’s line of sight. “What about you, Kid? Why are you here?” 

“Oh, I appeared out of thin air,” Kobra said, dry, if only because it  _ was  _ true. He’d been saying something before he glitched, but he was in far too much pain right then to remember it. 

Blue rolled her eyes, flicking him on the head. “Smartass. You one of the metas ‘round here?” 

“How’d you guess?” 

“ _ Appeared out of thin air,  _ really gave it away, kid. Where are you supposed to be?” 

Kobra sat up, slumping against the brick wall like she was, and only feeling mostly like a child as his legs straightened in front of him, weak and weary and  _ Witch, _ he didn’t know what that had  _ been,  _ but he was way sorer than he had any right to be. 

“I’m, uh…” His voice lowered, a subconscious habit from the city that he’d tried - and  _ succeeded  _ \- to kick years ago. “I’m from the Zones. Zone Two.” 

“Three hundred miles out, huh? You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” She asked, her voice drawling, a  _ shake  _ to it that was reminiscent of wires not rerouting power as quickly as they should. 

_ Three hundred miles.  _ Three hundred miles from where he was supposed to be, and Kobra had no way of getting back - he couldn’t glitch  _ another  _ three hundred miles. His conscious record was something like… twenty miles, maybe? 

(It was a work in progress, alright? Usually, there was a lot more on his plate than trying to push at his abilities, see how far he could go or what he could do. That was Poison’s thing, because Poison actually knew how it worked.) 

Kobra didn’t say anything, glancing around as though he didn’t know where he was - didn’t  _ want  _ to know where he was. 

The Neon District. Battery City. 

The last time he’d been here, not of his own volition, he’d been something like a mindless soldier following orders, but at the very least, his head hadn’t been a mess and he hadn’t known he had  _ superpowers.  _

Escaping the City would’ve been so much easier if he could’ve teleported him and Poison out, though he’d learned long ago that his power never breached the bounds of Battery City’s walls - like something in the concrete itself was preventing Kobra from going any further. 

Oh, that just made his day, didn’t it? 

“You need to get home,” Blue murmured, and when Kobra glanced at her, she wasn’t staring  _ at  _ him so much as staring  _ through  _ him, past the neon and the dirt layered into his skin. 

It wasn’t a question, and there was nothing for Kobra to say - nothing that he  _ should  _ say. 

What the  _ fuck  _ was going on around here? 

Blue continued, though, before Kobra was scrambling for anything to say, anything to do; she took a cigarette from the crumpled package out of his sight, lighting it with a flick of her finger, and Kobra didn’t ask. “You’re one of the rebels out of the Desert. You were on the break-in at the droid store, weren’t you?” 

_ How did she know that?  _

“Yeah, I was,” Kobra swallowed. She wasn’t asking, she was  _ telling,  _ and he was just - was just  _ acknowledging  _ what she was saying. “It was - it was a med run. There were med supplies hidden in the bottom of the boxes.”

“I know it was. You were there. You were the distraction, weren’t you? Along with the Chordettes boy. What happened on that run, Kobra Kid?” 

“Nothing happened,” Kobra answered, the first thing to pop out of his mouth, and why he even answered in the first place, he didn’t even know. Why did he answer? Why couldn’t he leave? 

Why did he appear next to  _ her,  _ of all people? 

Blue raised a brow. 

Kobra cursed. 

“Nothing happened save for the  _ explosion  _ and subsequent  _ falling out  _ of the plan. That was - that was all. It’s… it’s kind of a blur, honestly.” And that much was true, though he didn’t know why he was telling her that, either - he was  _ compelled. _

(But that was impossible, wasn’t it? She was a droid. Maybe he just needed someone inconspicuous to air his dirty laundry too. Something told him that was a horrible, shitty idea, but he had a lot going on, alright?) 

“And why is it a blur, kid?” 

That was… a good question. He’d chalked it up to the adrenaline, and the fact that the blast that scraped his ribs had hurt like hell and he’d done his best to block it out, but… 

But it was blurry  _ before  _ he’d gotten hit, and he didn’t actually remember it. 

Kobra’s mouth opened, closed, and opened again, his surroundings getting blurry with a tingle in his fingertips, that  _ rush  _ of  _ movement  _ that always encased him when - 

But he didn’t  _ want  _ to glitch!

_ “Why is it a blur?”  _ Blue asked again, her bright, unnaturally blue eyes staring him down, an icy shock to his system, but not in the same way Ghoul’s or Newsie’s eyes were; blue as in  _ manufactured  _ blue, but something she wore with pride. 

Palms digging into the gravel and pavement underneath him, grounding him,  _ staying here, where he was,  _ teeth grit, Kobra spoke, strangled and lost somewhere in his throat. “I - It’s -  _ I don’t know  _ why it’s blurry.” 

“What did the Witch tell you, Kobra Kid?” 

_ Kobra Kid.  _ She didn’t say his name right. She - she  _ wasn’t  _ saying his name, not her, but someone - some _ thing _ else, and this time, it was Kobra’s choice to speak, voicing the theories swimming between his ribs, behind the band around his heart that kept him from ever spitting truth into a world that didn’t care for it, didn’t care for  _ him.  _

“It’s not the Witch’s fault,” Kobra said, quiet, dropping his voice down low enough that the artificial wind couldn’t pick apart a word. “It’s not her fault. She didn’t want this. It’s Ghoul’s fault. It’s  _ our  _ fault. How do you know about that?”

Blue sighed, and the theories swimming around Kobra’s ribs stopped, abruptly losing all their sustenance. “I don’t know, kid. I think it’s my fault, too. Whatever it is. This is why you don’t separate from the people that care about you, you hear? The Lobby doesn’t care about its crowns until they’re gone, and -” 

Despite Blue cutting herself off, Kobra nodded to let her continue, gritty blond hair falling in his face as he did so. Witch, his hair even  _ smelled  _ cold. 

The worry would come next. For now, Kobra would listen, listen to Blue’s word and the lilt to her voice - far more  _ Desert  _ than Battery City, but that was impossible, wasn’t it? 

“The Lobby lost its heroes,” she said, a  _ dare  _ on the tip of her tongue that Kobra couldn’t place. “The Lobby is abandoned and alone, and the City has its claws sunk deep into everyone. The kids disappearing off the street. The neon paint riddled with monotone. The ‘droids disappearin’ just a street over. We are  _ alone,  _ now.” 

“And the - the Juvee Halls? Aren’t the Juvee Halls supposed to… to  _ protect  _ all of you?” 

Blue laughed, mirthless, something shaking in the pit of Kobra’s stomach as he thought of all that could mean. “The Juvee Halls are another lost cause ‘round here, kid. They aren’t ‘joys. They’re just people, and dying for their cause is like a rat dying to get a chunk of cheese. It’s not worth it.” 

“And… And…” This was where he was supposed to engage his critical thinking skills, but Kobra’s mind could only work so fast until he settled on the right thing to say with his nails digging into the pavement so hard they would bleed. “And the Suitehearts? Don’t they guide the Lobby, too?” 

“Gone. Lost causes. Haven’t seen ‘em around since the doctor went MIA, raid gone wrong, and the med supply  _ you  _ went on. Word gets around, kid.” 

_ Word gets around.  _

Word gets around. Of the raid gone wrong and the Suitehearts stepping down, and - and did word get around about  _ him,  _ too? About the way he ran away from everything? The way he left Jet and Ghoul and  _ comatose  _ Poison, just because he couldn’t  _ handle  _ it all? 

“I - I need to get to the Underground,” is what Kobra ended up saying, a knot in his chest with every heartbeat, guilt settling over his being like a second skin. He couldn’t acknowledge it. 

If he acknowledged it, then she would, too, and his dirty laundry was just that:  _ his.  _

Blue hummed once again, something that burned with the truth. Truth Kobra wasn’t going to share, something she was  _ judging  _ him for, and by Witch, judgment day was upon him in a way he couldn’t fathom. 

Judgment day was an android who knew more than she was letting on, and something about  _ judgment  _ didn’t sound so much  _ the end of days,  _ like Kobra had seen in some of the books he’d pillaged over the years, but familiarity he hadn’t sensed in years. 

(What familiarity? He didn’t know, didn’t  _ want  _ to know, but it felt of his mother, and nothing with her involved was more than hushed glances and tight smiles. Maybe it felt like… the woman his mother was when she was in the same room as  _ Poison.  _ That sounded about right.) 

“You need to get down to the Underground, and you need to get the rest of them there, too. The DJ knows what I’m talking about, though he doesn’t know it yet. The Chordettes boy. He needs to be back with his crew. Can you manage that?” 

“And why should I be listening to you, who I’ven’t the  _ slightest  _ clue as to how you  _ got  _ that information?” Their meeting at WKIL - that had been private, for them only, and no way their frequencies worked the same in the City as they did in the Desert. 

“Cause and effect and consequence,” said Blue, “That’s all there is to it. I am consequence. You are affect. My - my girlfriend is cause. You’ll learn, soon. If you’re alive by then. Find the Chordettes boy and bring him  _ home;  _ find the doctor and bring him to life; find the revolutionist to find the bomb. It’ll make sense.  _ It’ll make sense.”  _

Before Kobra could ask any further, Blue gave a flick of her finger, smoke tendrils dancing in the air from the cigarette she’d brought to her mouth, and that was  _ all Kobra could see,  _ focused in on the smoke as though it was a homing beacon. 

The smoke, of course, drifted up to the air; Kobra’s gaze drifted toward it, but when he snapped his eyes back to the ground, to  _ Blue,  _ out of his stupor, he found nothing more than dark space and the fading outline of a city alley. 

She’d  _ done  _ something. 

But what had she done? 

Blinking, Kobra readjusted to the new light source, but it wasn’t - it wasn’t dim like… No, no, it was… he didn’t… 

Oh. 

He was in  _ two different places.  _

That wasn’t concerning at all, was it? 

Nevertheless, he squinted, narrowing his eyes against the sudden onslaught of stimuli that he didn’t quite know how to process, and it  _ stopped  _ \- not in, not in too different places, but in one concrete area, and when Kobra’s eyes catch on his surroundings, he couldn’t help but groan. 

_ Great,  _ right where he wanted to be. 

And that wasn’t sarcastic, not really, but he - He didn’t know. Something about it didn’t feel  _ right,  _ a weight on his back, another world to hold on his shoulders. 

The Underground was just as Kobra had left it, though when he’d gone, he’d been holing up in the Infirmary and certainly didn’t have his back on the cold metal of a catwalk, his arm hanging off the ledge. 

No one was around, either, and excuse the pun, but that certainly  _ cemented  _ Kobra’s dread of the situation; the last time he’d been in the Underground and he couldn’t see anyone other than the people he’d been traveling with, his brother had been kidnapped. 

_ His brother.  _

_ Poison.  _

That was why he was down here - Kobra scrambled up, coughing a storm up from his lungs when the cold, biting air made its way down his throat; the blinding light above him was for a… a restaurant, of some sort. 

Who the hell was still open at -? 

Oh. That raised a good question. What time was it? 

His eyes were… were heavy, though he couldn’t place when he’d gotten tired along the way; when he blinked, lights flashed across his vision and for a second, for a  _ split second  _ when he opened them again, the dark, muted colors of the Underground were a neonscape; neon and dark shadows flying to the sides and neon attached to everything that a killjoy had ever touched. 

And he  _ understood  _ that. 

It faded as quickly as it came. Kobra couldn’t be sure it’d even happened. 

(Maybe he was delirious. Some things certainly make more sense, wouldn’t they?) 

Lying there on the catwalk, no one around to judge him to tell him anything cryptic or tell him to get off his ass, he let the loneliness in his chest wash over him, drowning, suffocating. 

_ Runaway. Coward.  _

That’s what he did. He ran away from his problems. From his crew, who needed him. From his family, who - who he didn’t  _ deserve  _ in the first place, and he’d simply proved that. 

He’d  _ abandoned  _ them. He didn’t even know where Poison and Jet were; Poison could be  _ dead  _ for all Kobra knew and he’d have been driving back to the fucking Diner for no other reason than he wanted his bike and the familiarity burned within his bones like a beacon home. 

Poison could be  _ dead.  _

Death was part of the job, part of what he’d signed up for when Poison had dragged the two of them out of the City. Death was inevitable, all-encompassing, burning through the few living things in the Zones to its target. 

Death was  _ not  _ meant for his  _ brother.  _ But Poison could be dead in a ditch somewhere, and Kobra wouldn’t know; all because he ran away from his problems and was… 

A wildcard. That’s what Ghoul called him, though only in passing and never out loud, never to his face;  _ the Kobra Kid is a wildcard.  _

And Ghoul’s right. 

Ghoul was  _ right.  _ Kobra was a wildcard; didn’t know where he was going until he was already there and dragging other people into his messes because he needed a shoulder to lean on and a bridge to burn. 

At the very least, it was Sandman this time. Someone who already had a crew and didn’t like Kobra to begin with; the number of relationships Kobra's burned because he couldn’t keep but bring them into his messes was astounding. 

_ He needed to get up. _

Jet was still in the Underground, somewhere; Ghoul was out in the desert, as was Sandman, so the other two - three? - Suitehearts should be in the Underground as well. And, of course,  _ Poison.  _

If Kobra got off his ass and found them, it would make his life a whole hell of a lot easier. 

With the heavy hum of nausea in his stomach, an anchor,  _ easy  _ sounded like a good plan. If only he knew how to find Jet. 

(He didn’t need to find Jet.) 

“Not many people around here are willing to nap on the catwalks, y’know,” someone said above him; Kobra groaned. 

He didn’t  _ want  _ to deal with people, not when he had a thousand things going on. He didn’t need  _ conversation  _ added to any of them. 

The voice continued. “They  _ especially  _ don’t take naps on the catwalks after going MIA on their crew, but I guess I did the same thing.” 

Wait. 

Kobra’s gaze snapped to the voice, to the  _ figure,  _ and while they were upside down in Kobra’s vision, it was unmistakable -  _ Jet.  _ Jet Star! Jet! 

Scrambling to sit up, Kobra banged his elbow into the cold metal, a grin stretching over his face. “What can I say? Curiosity killed the cat. I am a  _ very  _ curious cat.” 

Jet didn’t share the same grin. “You’re a  _ lost  _ cat if anything, Kobra. Where - where  _ were  _ you? Do you know where Ghoul is?” 

“Something tells me we have communication issues.” 

“Yeah, no shit,” Jet huffed, their arms crossed, and  _ fuck,  _ Kobra’s guilt was starting to eat him alive; Jet looked far more worn than Kobra had ever seen them, even after that firefight, with exhaustion in their eyes that could only come from a bone-deep weariness. 

No wonder they were tired. 

They were down here, in the Underground, alone, because Kobra was a jackass and didn’t stay when he should’ve because he ran away. 

Though, Kobra did suppose, his own deserting habits didn’t matter, because he was here now, and he had to help Jet, and… And, Destroya, he had a hundred other things to do if they were counting what happened back at the station and what he’d talked about with Blue. 

That didn’t matter, right? 

For the moment, it didn’t matter. 

(Kobra’s chest ached. He didn’t know why. He’d figure it out later. It would be fine by then, right?) 

Eventually, though, Kobra sighed, pulling himself up into a sitting position and dangling his legs over the chasm that housed the Underground, over the catwalk. “A lot happened. I’m - I’m sorry, for… for disappearing. I’ll - I’ll explain everything soon, I - I swear.” 

_ That was a lie.  _

Jet must’ve known that, too, but the shrug they gave wasn’t disappointed. They knew Kobra too well. “I found Poison. Or - where Poison was. He’s awake. He’s awake, and - and  _ alone  _ and… and I don’t know, beyond that.” 

_ Poison was awake. _

_ Poison was awake and Kobra wasn’t there for it.  _

_ Poison was awake and no one had any clue where he was.  _

The combination of events made the ache in Kobra’s chest multiply sevenfold, but he choked back nausea bubbling up in his throat for the fifth time that day, thoughts spilling out of his mouth unbidden. 

This was all connected. It had to be. It was all connected, and somehow, someway, Poison was the missing piece that would connect it all together. 

“I think we cause the end of the world. The end of the killjoys. The end of the rebels.” 

**Author's Note:**

> ... thoughts !!! I hope everyone enjoyed reading <3


End file.
